Woods has short game, not much else
Short-game yips?
What short-game yips?
Tiger Woods pronounced that problem solved, cured and gone. He did so Thursday after the opening round of the 79th Masters, a tournament he has won four times. And he did so just 18 holes into returning from a self-imposed leave of absence for, well, having the yips.
And they’re not just gone. They’re conquered. Exorcised from his mind.
“It's my strength again,” Woods said, sounding as proud as he was emphatic. “That's why I've busted my butt. That's why I took time off. That's why I hit thousands and thousands of shots to make sure that it's back to being my strength. And it did.”
OK, it might not have been enough to save Woods from shooting 1-over 73 — that’s another issue — and finding himself nine shots behind leader Jordan Spieth after the first round.
But it was enough to satisfy even the most curious skeptics who were out in droves for the first round to micro-analyze every pitch shot Woods faced at Augusta National Golf Club.
There were no chunks or chili dips. There were no bladed shots over the greens.
From the very first pitch at No. 3 to the testy one-hop stop across Rae’s Creek at No. 12 (that came after he watered his tee shot), Woods controlled his shortgame with aplomb, if not magnificence. There was none of the embarrassing stuff that haunted him in Phoenix or San Diego two months ago, which was the last time he was spotted playing competitively on a golf course.
“I tried to hole most of them, that's the thing,” Woods said. “I'm back to hitting shots, making it hop, check on the second bounce, third bounce. I can figure those things out again.”
So he’s not only cured, he’s cocky.
OK, on to his next problem.
While his short game, really, was nothing short of sensational, the same could not be said for the other problem that has afflicted Woods for a much longer period. And that is the driving yips (there’s that word again).
That’s the term Hank Haney, his one-time swing coach, used to describe the problem Woods continues to have off the tee.
His statistical numbers weren’t bad in the first round — he hit 10 of 14 fairways, a respectable 71 percent, though that does not include the time he hit the No. 1 fairway from the No. 9 tee.
That occurred at No. 9 when Woods yanked his tee shot into the Georgia pines, only to have his ball ricochet into the No. 1 fairway with a clear shot to the green.
But, with a fairway metal from nearly 240 yards, Woods failed to take advantage of the good break, badly shoving his second shot back into the same clump of pines. From there, he hit a low-hooking punch behind the hole and two-putted for what they call in golf parlance “a good bogey.”
“I played the wrong shot. I was trying to turn it down there and I really shouldn't have turned it down there,” Woods said. “And then on top of that, the next one, I hit the wrong shot again. I tried to put the ball in the bunker when I probably should have put the ball short right of the bunker and pitched up.”
But then Woods settled down. He got up and down from the right greenside bunker at 10, made a solid par at 11, then saved another good bogey with his one-hop-and-stop pitch shot at No. 12.
His two-putt birdie at the par-5 13th was his only one on the back. It was also his first since the par-5 eighth when — there he goes again — executing a delicate pitch from near the grandstand to 4 feet.
“It's good. … I'm glad he's back,” said playing partner Jimmy Walker, the only two-time winner on the PGA Tour in 2015. “He played OK. He had a couple wild shots. We all did.
“He had some good pars where he got up and down. It was good to see him playing good. It's probably not what he wanted. It's not what I wanted.”
Woods said he hit the ball well enough to shoot 69. As it were, the 73 is a good start from his previous posted 18hole score, which was 82 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Woods is tied for 42nd, still with a chance to make the cut.
“You know, I'm still in it,” Woods said. “I'm only nine back. And we have a long way to go. And we don't know what the Masters is going to do, what they're going to do with the greens or the golf course. You know how they like to change things every now and then. We’ll see.”
It’s kind of the same with Tiger’s game. We’ll see.