Golf: Tiger Woods Is The Wild Card At Doral
By Les Bailey
The one thing you spend a lot of time doing when you write a blog that addresses a particular subject like golf, is reading everyone else’s blogs on the subject. Everyone who has a voice, and are making picks for The WGC-Cadillac Championship seem to be side stepping the “Pink Elephant” in the room. That Pink Elephant is Tiger Woods.
With everyone in the world of professional golf busily involved in the Rory McIlroy situation, the forgotten player who no one is talking about is Tiger. I have an idea that because he struggled last week at The Honda, he isn’t on anyone’s radar. Everyone is talking about defending champ, Justin Rose, Charl Schwartzel is high on the lists, and some are even picking Louis Oosthuizen.
Hello..Doesn’t anyone remember how dominating Tiger was at Torrey Pines last month? In the rough conditions with the fog, and wind, he carried an eight stroke lead into the final day of the somewhat strange ending tournament, only to win by four strokes at The Farmers Insurance Open. He started spraying the ball late on Monday, but I think it was more from boredom, having to follow Steve Marino, and his group for 11 holes, than swing problems.
We should know by the end of the first nine holes on Thursday if Tiger will be a contender this week. We know he is going have some driver problems, but Tiger’s destiny is in the hands of his flat stick. If he get’s a little momentum on the greens, look out, he can make up shots in a hurry. He is a lot like Dale Earnhardt was in NASCAR, no one on the planet can go from worst to first as quickly as Tiger Woods can climb a leader board in a golf tournament.
The other factor here is, Woods has won six times at The Blue Monster. He likes this golf course, and I, for one will not make a pick for this tournament without first considering this guy. A win at this event would be a nice kick off for a run at the Masters, and if Rory doesn’t perform well again this week, push him even closer to that all-important number one ranking in the OWGR. My guess is Tiger Woods will come to play this week, there is too much on the line for him to lay down and quit. Oh…Tiger never quits, that’s the other guy.
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