Keys to a Woods Victory After Round 1

Ladies and gentlemen, Tiger Woods is back! An opening round 69 effectively shushed all the haters and critics of the TW comeback, and also put him in a solid position, just three shots back of the lead. Overall, Woods looked very comfortable on the course. Was he playing like the Vintage Tiger that we all grew up to love? That’s a bit of a stretch, but he looks very close to getting back to the elite level that he once was at. Here are some of the pros and cons from his first professional round back, and what he would need to do in order to potentially win the Hero this week.

The Pros: First of all, I would like to take a second to talk about Tiger’s swing. Last comeback, his swing was a very forced motion, and it looked like he used all of the muscles in his back to keep it under control. Since the lower back is a pivot point for the golf swing, that much strain really weakened the area, ultimately caused Tiger to need the fusion surgery in order to reduce the pain. However, the swing I have been seeing from him on his latest comeback campaign is much more rhythmic, leading to less strain on the back as well as more control over the golf ball. This is why he drove the ball so well today and his Strokes Gained: Tee to Green was so impressive. Tiger also putted the ball very nicely, having 9 one-putts today, some of which were no easy gimmies. Even when he missed, he didn’t miss by much, which is a very promising sign considering that Vintage Tiger was an incredible putter. If Woods can maintain this new, rhythmic golf swing and improve his putting just a little bit, he is well on his way to a full comeback.

The Cons: Despite a solid overall round, there were a few blaring gaps in Tiger’s game that he really needs to address. Vintage Tiger was incredibly sound with all aspects of his game, but 2017 Comeback Tiger needs to address his short game a bit. There were times that his putter bailed him out during today’s round, but the flaws in his short game were most noticeable on the par 5’s, which he played in one over par for the round. Par 5’s are generally scoring opportunities for PGA Tour players, but you cannot score well on them if you don’t have the short game to get close to the hole from around the green. Therefore, in order to return to his original form, Woods needs to spend a solid amount of time working on different shots around the green, especially if he wants to return to the winner’s circle this year.

That being said, some of you might be wondering if Tiger has any chance of winning the Hero this week. My answer is yes, but there are two things that he needs to resolve for tomorrow’s round if he wants to bring home the trophy. First of all, he needs to score better on the Par 5’s to have any chance of winning. Albany GC has five par 5’s, all of which are excellent scoring opportunities. In order to win you need to score a lot better than +1 on them, and that comes from spending some time before tomorrow’s round working on his short game. The other thing that Woods needs to do is to maintain or improve on the other areas of his game for the next three rounds. His driving and approaches were very solid, aside from two or three errant shots throughout the round, and his putting was mostly dialed in, though it wouldn’t hurt him if he focused on controlling the speed of longer putts just a bit more. If Tiger is able to improve these two keys to victory, then he is guaranteed to improve on the result from today’s round. As long as Woods is within two shots of the lead heading into the weekend, then there is a very good chance that Woods can win in his very first event back. What a fitting comeback that would be!

Written by Paul Choma