Tiger Woods’ 2020 season comes to a disappointing end

Tiger Woods won’t make it to East Lake after a poor finish at the BMW Championship

While the leaders were still waiting to tee off on Sunday at the BMW Championship, Tiger Woods was already at the podium speaking to the media. It was a tangible sign that the 82-time PGA Tour winner was, once again, nowhere close to the top of the leaderboard during a final round.

“It’s been a year which we would like to forget,” Woods told the Golf Channel after his one-over round of 71, his best of the week. He was speaking more generally about everything that’s happened in the wider world throughout 2020, but more specifically it can also describe how he feels about his season.

It was a season that began with a bright light, a victory at the Zozo Championship in Japan last October to tie Sam Snead for most PGA Tour wins. But it quickly fizzled out, as Woods never seriously contended in an event again. His best finish since is a tie for ninth place at the Farmers Insurance Open in January. Since the PGA Tour’s restart, he hasn’t been better than a tie for 37th in four events.

This week at the BMW Championship, the penultimate event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, marked a low point in the year for Woods. He finished at 11-over for the tournament at Olympia Fields, which currently puts him in a tie for 53rd. It’s the first time since 2010 he’s played a 72-hole tournament without shooting at least one round under-par. He failed to birdie either of the two par-fives on the course in eight attempts, only the second time in his career he played four rounds without making a birdie on a par-five. It’s the fifth time in the last 10 seasons Woods has played all four rounds of a non-major without shooting a round in the 60s. And he made just nine birdies all week, his fewest in a 72-hole event since the 2007 U.S. Open.

His struggles this year extended to all aspects of his game. Woods doesn’t have enough rounds to qualify for the PGA Tour statistical leaderboards, but he would rank 196th on tour in putting this season. He lost strokes on the greens, the first time he’s done that since 2010. He would be 93rd in driving (the stats aren’t all bad, though: he would rank fourth in strokes gained: approach to the green).

Woods is currently projected 63rd in the FedEx Cup standings, his worst finish since 2015. He’ll miss the Tour Championship next week at East Lake for the second straight year after winning the tournament in 2018. It’s a premature end to a season that started so promising.

The next time the PGA Tour gets a look at Woods will likely come in three weeks when the U.S. Open is held at Winged Foot. The Masters is in November. What tournaments Woods plays around those majors, though, is anyone’s guess. It’s a schedule not even he knows how to prepare for.

“No one’s ever seen a schedule like this,” he said. “With the U.S. Open being this late, and then The Masters in the fall. It’s all very different to all of us.”

His 2020 season is over. He now has three weeks to prepare for a brand new year and get in shape to start it off the best way possible: with a major championship title.