10
THE RECORDER / Wednesday, September 5, 2012 / SPORTS SPORTS BEGINS ON BACK PAGE
Tiger’s 2012 A Subtle Success Justin Muszynski The Recorder
He is the standard by which golf excellence is measured. But that is a burden as much as it is a compliment. Ever since he turned professional in 1996, Tiger Woods has dominated the game of golf like no other player before him, and often times draws unfair criticism; 2012 has been no different. Ever since the end of 2009, when it was revealed that Woods was involved in several extramarital affairs, his golf game has fallen off the map. He failed to win an official PGA Tour event in 2010 as well as 2011. Part of his woes could be attributed to a bad left Achilles tendon that has plagued him for a good chunk of his career., but the critics will tell you that he has lost a step mentally that used to earn him hardfought victories. He has always been one of the best grinders in golf, famously eking out wins with his C game. But perhaps the most unpublicized story in sports in 2012 has been the bounce-back year that Woods is having. Not only did he earn his first official victory since 2009, but he racked up two more. A feat only duplicated this year by the 23-year-old prodigy from Northern Ireland, Rory McIlroy. Woods broke the ice with an impressive five-stroke win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March. He followed this up with another victory at the Memorial Tournament in June, and another at the AT&T National in July. In doing so he passed Nicklaus on the most PGA Tour wins list and currently sits in second place just eight behind Sam Snead. Coming into last week he was number one on the PGA’s money list, surpassed by
McIlroy Monday after he won the Deutsche Bank Championship. He is ranked third in the Official World Golf Rankings up from 23 in 2011 and is also second on the tour in scoring average at 68.87 a round.
Tiger Woods So why is he still attracting scrutiny from his critics? The only real worthy criticism of Woods this year is that he failed to win a major championship after being in contention a
couple times to do just that. It is widely known that ever since he was a young child learning golf, Woods set his sight on surpassing the most prized record in the sport of 18 major championships held by none other than Jack
PHOTO | tigerwoods.com
Nicklaus. Nicklaus is considered by many the greatest golfer to ever live. And the Tiger critics have put his legacy solely on holding this record when it’s all said and done. Fair? Maybe.
Woods has developed a nasty habit of starting off tournaments strong and floundering on the weekend, a trait that he used to contrast in his prime when he would take control after the halfway mark. But there’s a logical explanation that most golf swing aficionados can agree on. Woods made major swing changes for the third time in his professional career after severing ties in 2010 to his former swing coach, Hank Haney. Going by his track record, he typically slumps a little when revamping his swing. It happened in 1998, 2003 to 2004, and now again. When a golfer faces the severe amount of pressure that a big tournament brings on, their mechanics suffer. Woods is not exempt from this. This is more than likely the reason why his swing has let him down in tense situations. Once he is fully comfortable with his new swing we’ll see the vintage Tiger moments that have won him countless amounts of tournaments. Tiger is by no means done as a dominant golfer. Is it true that he probably won’t ever reproduce the run he went on from 1999 to 2002? Most likely, yes. But, he certainly has many great years ahead of him. He is one of the few names being mentioned for the 2012 PGA Tour Player of the Year honors, but somehow this year has been chalked up as a complete loss for Tiger by most sportswriters. He also has two more official events in the coming weeks where he will have the opportunity to capture his fourth win of 2012. But, the bigger year for him may be 2013. I expect it to be a career year for Woods that will finally silence his latest critics whom think his most recent swing change was a mistake.
Follow The Recorder on Twitter @TheRecorder for breaking news multimedia and live tweeting @RecorderSports FOR LIVE TWEETS DURING GAMES
www.centralrecorder.com