Tiger Watch 2009 thread

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XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Sounds like he'll be back on the tour soon?

He's back (almost).

Tiger Woods said he's now hitting full shots and working with his coach, Hank Haney, to get ready for his return to the PGA Tour. Although, he said he won't return to the PGA Tour until after the birth of his second child, expected this month, according to his web site, tigerwoods.com. "I did some work with Hank Haney for a few days last week and it's all good," Woods said. "I'm full-bore with my practice sessions and have no restrictions; it's just a matter of getting my golf endurance up. I don't have my golf stamina back yet."

The news that Woods is close to returning to the game is welcome news for fans, TV executives and tournament directors, who have seen declining attendance and ratings while Woods has been recovering from knee surgery. However, Woods stopped short of naming his actual return date, a subject of much speculation. His announcement virtually assures Woods will compete in this year's Masters tournament.

"As for my comeback to the PGA Tour, a lot depends on the baby, which is due pretty soon. That takes precedent over anything I do golf-wise," Woods said. "Elin, Sam and I are very excited for the new baby to arrive, although that's when the real lack of sleep begins."

Woods, 33, has found himself in the role of stay-at-home dad since June 2008, when he underwent reconstructive knee surgery following his dramatic U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif. He's said he enjoyed spending the extra time with his daughter and that his knee injury has been a "blessing" in many ways.

"But I must admit, I am also excited about returning to competition," Woods said. "Early on, I didn't miss golf because I enjoyed staying home with Elin and Sam and I knew I wasn't physically able to play.

"The truth is, I would have embarrassed myself. Now, I'm getting my feel and practice back. It's just a matter of playing more on the course," Woods said.

As for how well he will play following knee surgery, his fourth surgery on his left knee, Woods said the knee feels better than ever and that he hasn't had to change his swing.

"Many people have asked me if my swing has changed since the surgery, and the answer is no. I'm doing all the things I've been trying to do for a long time, but I can actually hit into my left leg without my bones moving," Woods said. "It's a nice feeling! It is so much better than it ever has been because my bones aren't grinding against each other. As for my length, I can't tell if I'm longer."
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We'll be seeing the return of the uppercut soon enough!

tigupper.jpg
 
A Tiger playing without pain after his mastery before the surgery? Rest of the tour must be quakin' in their boots now!
 
Golf is now relevant once again :D

Ok I still watched some of that FBR Open this past weekend but none of it is the same without Tigod playing winning
 
Tamanon said:
http://i26.tinypic.com/67odgm.gif[IMG]

[IMG]http://i27.tinypic.com/2n0ogzm.gif[IMG][/QUOTE]

[URL="http://youtube.com/watch?v=1nJfhUGM4Yc"]BOW TO HIS GREATNESS[/URL]
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I would love a tiger poster from the 08 open, but they go for 50+ on ebay. Why doesn't nike make more Tiger merch like t-shirts? I would gobble that shit up.
 
got2bekidding said:
I can't wait to watch him kick ass again. Golf isn't golf without Tiger in the mix.
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I was at the Ryder cup last year and it was actually pretty entertaining. Guys got to compete with each other without Tiger making the rest of the team choke and thus lose. USA ended up winning.

though i do love me a Tiger miracle putt...
 
bjscott05 said:
I would love a tiger poster from the 08 open, but they go for 50+ on ebay. Why doesn't nike make more Tiger merch like t-shirts? I would gobble that shit up.
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Nike has the Tiger Woods Collection, which probably isn't what you're looking for. I own about 6-7 TW shirts.
 
got2bekidding said:
I can't wait to watch him kick ass again. Golf isn't golf without Tiger in the mix.
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As mentioned above, the Ryder Cup was actually pretty entertaining last year.

Hopefully we'll start seeing more of the young guns jumping into the mix this season along with Tiger.
 
Well Tiger isn't really known for his Ryder Cup prowess now is he? I'm just talking about on tour and winning majors. The Ryder Cup is nice for what it is and what it means to each party, but the tour is Tiger's measuring stick to get to Jack.
 
got2bekidding said:
Well Tiger isn't really known for his Ryder Cup prowess now is he? I'm just talking about on tour and winning majors. The Ryder Cup is nice for what it is and what it means to each party, but the tour is Tiger's measuring stick to get to Jack.
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I just meant that there was still some entertaining golf to be watched last season even without Tiger, though I guess for someone who only cares about Tiger that wouldn't matter. :)
 
Caddie Steve Williams says Tiger "a few weeks away" from returning.

``It's going to be anytime, shortly,'' Williams said.

``He's probably 95 percent of the way there. He was waiting for the birth of his second child which just came last week so he's ready to go. He just needs a little bit more walking. He hasn't been able to walk too well,'' he added.

``Anytime in the next few weeks he's going to tee it up. He definitely wants to play a couple of tournaments before Augusta so any day now he's going to make a decision when he's going to play.''

Speculation has increased over the past week that Woods would make his return at the Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson, Arizona starting Feb. 25. His wife, Elin, gave birth to their second child - a boy named Charlie Axel - earlier in the month. Woods has not played since reconstructive surgery on his left knee a week after winning the U.S. Open in June.

Williams said Woods had remodeled his swing to accommodate his injured knee and had been refreshed mentally by his long break. ``He's just got a couple of little issues but when he tees it up that will be a sign to say 'I'm ready to go' because he won't play unless he's 100 percent. It's getting closer,'' Williams said.

Woods had been doing six hours a day of rehab on his knee to get fit again, Willliams said. ``He never tees it up unless he believes he can win and he's ready to go.'' The New Zealand-born caddie said Woods still had the heart and brain that took him to No. 1 in the world rankings, so that alleviated some concerns about his return from the knee problem.

``He's had to modify his swing a little bit to accommodate his knee, but the guy always finds a way,'' Williams said. ``I'm a little nervous myself to see how he's going to come back. Nine months out of the game after a major operation is a long time but he's a hell of a competitor and one of the best we've ever seen in this game so I would suspect he'll carry right on.''
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XiaNaphryz said:
I just meant that there was still some entertaining golf to be watched last season even without Tiger, though I guess for someone who only cares about Tiger that wouldn't matter. :)
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I never said it wasn't entertaining, just that professional golf isn't the same when the best player isn't playing in the tournament. I don't understand why that's difficult to grasp, and gets construed to meaning that there weren't any entertaining events and that I care about only Tiger. I figured anyone who watches professional sports or even competed in any sport could understand that it's always more gratifying to compete against the best and watch them perform. The quality of product is diminished when the best aren't there, not necessarily the entertainment factor.

Either way Tiger is coming back and will hopefully be competing in what his caddy says possibly March.
 
I'm a bit curious (concerned?) that there seems to be conflicting info on whether he's changed his swing.

This will be interesting.
 
Onix said:
I'm a bit curious (concerned?) that there seems to be conflicting info on whether he's changed his swing.

This will be interesting.
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Yeah, I'm with you on that. It will be interesting when he tees up and lets loose. Of course eventually he will have to change his swing to get rid of some of that torque in his knee. I just hope he doesn't have to compensate for injuries this early in his career.
Onix said:
Speaking of roids, I wonder if he's been on them during his rehibilitation?
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Nah, just smoking weed.
 
Gamecocks625 said:
Between Tiger's uppercut and Villegas practically doing yoga on the greens, I'm ready to see these two go at it.
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Please tell me I'm not the only one that immediately thought of SF4 with this sentence? Or was it intentional? DRIVING ME BONKERS

Yay that Tiger is back!
 
he changes his swing almost annually, it wouldn't be a big deal if he did again. I want him to bring back his 3 wood punch shot off the tee.
 
Tiger talks about his swing post-operation:

The answer may lie in his swing, which should look similar to the untrained eye, but could exude a few slight differences when shown in a slow-mo split screen alongside his previous move.

"I've been trying to make changes in my golf swing, and one of the great things about coming back was with the ACL, my bones aren't moving anymore," Woods contended. "That's a very comforting feeling, hitting a golf ball and not having your bones slide all over the place. One, it didn't feel good and, two, it caused a lot of pain. It's been very exciting to be able to play that way."

Lack of pain is nice, of course, but being healthy doesn't necessary mean his swing will be grooved as we've come to know it. Or it could look better than ever. Until we witness Tiger in Marana, Ariz., next week, we can only postulate as to how he's hitting 'em and how that will translate into next week's play.

With that in mind, rumors persist that Woods' short game became noticeably stronger during the months he was sidelined -- a scary proposition for the competition.
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With Tiger dominating for the last few years with a deteriorating knee, I can't see how he could do any worse from this point on (minus catastrophic re-injury of course).
 
XiaNaphryz said:
With Tiger dominating for the last few years with a deteriorating knee, I can't see how he could do any worse from this point on (minus catastrophic re-injury of course).
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The thing is, you can never put your finger on what makes a person's mentality stronger or weaker. There's no way to scientifically predict it.

That having been said, the safe assumption is that Tiger will be a fierce competitor as he's always been. He's definitely set himself apart from his buddy Roger Federer in that regard.
 
Granted my swing is probably not even 40% of the power and speed of Wood's swing, but I had my knee reconstructed and honestly it was the initial loss in flexibility that bothered my swing more than anything else.

I had more difficulty walking around on the hilly parts of the course and in and out of the sand traps than I did with my swing.

I don't think the knee is going to be a big issue for Woods with respect to his swing. I think being out of golf shape and being rusty is going to be the biggest factor.
 
I actually think it will be a little while before we see the "real" Tiger again. Im not going to predict an early exist at the Accenture, but I dont believe he will win. I also dont believe he will win the Masters.

However, he dominated Bethpage Black last time and by the US Open he should be back to his usual game so I can definitely see him winning the US Open.
 
The only thing I can see derailing Tiger in the future is a major chronic back injury. That almost always turns an elite golfer to an average one at best if they can even continue playing.
 
TylerD said:
So who is the unfortunate soul that gets to go up against him first?
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Brendan Jones, a regular on the Japan Tour.

"The first thing I will probably say to Tiger is, 'Can I have three a side?'" said Jones, who has never met Woods. "Maybe one more on the front, in case I don't get to the back."

And he's done his homework, knowing fellow Aussies Nick O'Hern and Peter O'Malley have defeated Woods in this tournament -- accounting for four of his six career losses in the event.

"I haven't had a chance to speak to Nick O'Hern or Peter O'Malley, but I spoke with Stephen Ames and he had some good advice for me," Jones quipped.

The reference was to three years ago, when Ames made the mistake of saying he thought Woods was vulnerable because of some difficulty he was having with his game.

Woods took note of the comments and defeated Ames 9 and 8. Only a 10 and 8 victory is bigger in an 18-hole match.

In truth, Jones had never met Ames. And he's never met Woods, who will greet him along with thousands of others Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.

"It's a chance of a lifetime, really," said Jones, 33, who spends most of his time competing on the Japan Tour, where he had eight career victories, including one last year. "I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm just really, really happy to have made the 64 for a start ... I think it's a pretty lucky spot."

Because the Japan Tour schedule does not begin until April, this is Jones' first tournament of the year.

"I'm an Australian, so I've got some sort of chance," he said. "Obviously I know I'm a long shot. I have got nothing to lose. I can just go out, be a lot more aggressive than what I normally would be. And if you say what are my chances? I have some sort of chance ... I would probably put the house on Tiger.

"But I'm not. I didn't fly all this way to try to lose. I'm here to try to beat him. And there's been some funny things [that] happen in sport. And I'm up against it, but I'm hoping that I'll put in a good effort."
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XiaNaphryz said:
The only thing I can see derailing Tiger in the future is a major chronic back injury. That almost always turns an elite golfer to an average one at best if they can even continue playing.
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Tiger supposedly does a ton of work to protect his back from injury. Usually the guys that develop back pain are the ones that were not hitting the weight room hard enough when they were young.

But you are right that a back injury would really put the brakes on his quest to beat Jack, but then you can't really play at a high level in almost any sport with a bad back.
 
Tiger's practice round draws large crowd:

MARANA, Ariz. -- If you were buried in a bunker for the past nine months and emerged Tuesday in the Arizona desert to watch Tiger Woods play a practice round, it might be understandable to wonder what all the fuss was about at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.

The sun had barely risen above the mountains when Woods arrived just after 7 a.m. local time. The camera crews, photographers and media members quickly added up to more than the number of balls Woods hit on the range. And then it was off to the first hole, where Woods launched his first tee shot of his first official practice round since undergoing knee surgery in June.

Wonder how many people were blogging about Ben Hogan's return from a serious auto accident in 1950? More than 100 media members were awake earlier than normal to see the world's No. 1 golfer in action for the first time since he defeated Rocco Mediate in a playoff at the U.S. Open in June. And a person who had no clue about Woods' inactivity would have a hard time recognizing that anything was different about his game.

"Why would it be different?" said Hank Haney, Woods' swing coach. "That's what I don't get. I'm not saying he is going to be better. He won 10 of the last 13 tournaments. I'm just trying to understand the logic of how he could be worse."

Haney noted, however, that Woods' swing is different.

"He is swinging with an ACL. The knee was always moving. Now it's strong."

Woods played the practice round for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship by himself, his first look at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain, where the tournament moved after being played down the road the past two seasons. Steve Williams, Woods' longtime caddie, was with him. So were agents, publicists, security personnel, marshals and an ever-growing gallery.

It didn't take long for an itchy photo finger to draw Woods' ire. He missed his only fairway on the front nine when a photographer's shutter went off too soon, drawing a "Not in my swing!" from Tiger, which had Williams reaching for another ball. On the tee it went, as Woods pumped it down the middle, the other ball left to the cactus. By the time Woods reached the ninth hole, the grandstand behind the green was nearly full, and some 500 spectators followed. Some early-season PGA Tour events would have killed for that kind of gallery during actual tournament play. There was a mini-roar when Woods knocked his approach shot to within 2 feet.

"This is pretty common for a practice round," said Joe Corless, who heads up security for the PGA Tour whenever Woods plays. "Especially as it goes on, as it gets later. But the first hole? It's never like that."

Perhaps that is why Woods stayed away until Tuesday. He knew he'd be facing a circus upon his return, and sure enough, that is what he got.

"I came here for a Tuesday practice round, and as I'm walking to the range, I've never seen so many cameras and photographers and so forth, especially that early in the morning, waiting for Tiger to get there," said Phil Mickelson, who was the only other player warming up on the range when Woods arrived.

"It's amazing to me what he has done for our sport, and for us to have the most recognizable athlete in the world playing our sport is so fortunate for all of us. And we've all been able to benefit from it, and to have him back is awesome.

"We are going to have more of a challenge winning golf tournaments certainly, but also it will be rewarding if we're able to win those."

There was some mild surprise that Woods elected to play just a single practice round at a course he had never seen. Although he didn't play the round at warp speed, he still played at a pretty brisk pace and took most of his time trying to get used to the slow but undulating greens. Haney said Woods spent the weekend practicing in Las Vegas before arriving in Arizona.

He might not have spent much time practicing on site, but Woods has gotten in plenty of practice at home since he began hitting balls again in December. In fact, Haney said, Woods has prepared far more this time around than he did before the U.S. Open after arthroscopic surgery following the Masters.

"It's much different now," Haney said. "He never hit balls [after a round] since Carnoustie [the 2007 British Open]. He was always in pain, and golf is such a mental game. And heading into the U.S. Open, he could never hit more than 40 balls during any practice."

Woods didn't appear to be in any pain Tuesday. He hit plenty of awe-inspiring shots.

And when it was over, less than four hours after it began, Woods was but a day away from his first-round match with Australia's Brendan Jones.
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Be afraid, PGA Tour players. Tiger's going to have one helluva year.
 
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