Greetings from my local auto garage, where the official HOG World Tour vehicle is undergoing some maintenance and a safety inspection. Unfortunately I’m going to need a new windshield…
Quite an entertaining weekend of golf and soap opera drama this week. First let’s talk about the golf.
Adam Scott
Adam Scott put on quite an impressive display of GOLF this past weekend. GOLF! He was in total control of all parts of his game en route to an impressive WGC victory. Kudos to Adam for playing so well amidst the the circus which is Tiger Woods and Steve Williams. I really look forward, and hope that the novelty of the Woods/Williams drama wears off and it gets less and less air time. But knowing the media and their seemingly never ending hunger for anything related to Tiger Woods, I’m not sure that will happen. Even more Kudos for the way Adam Scott has handled himself in staying out of the drama.
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods made his return to tournament golf for the first time since leaving THE PLAYERS back in May after nine holes. As I mentioned in my previous Tiger Woods commentary, regardless of the outcome of the WGC Bridgestone event Tiger’s comeback should not be based on one round or one tournament. Though he said he was in the WGC Bridgestone to win the thing, I didn’t quite expect that. What else is he going to say anyway?
New same old Tiger?
What plagued Tiger before this comeback? Driving accuracy was a big issue. So how did he do in that department this past week? His four rounds’ stats for the week in fairway percentage were 36%, 57%, 29% and 36% for a 39.3% average. I hit more fairways than that, which isn’t saying much.
Tiger’s putting was decent for the most part, except round two where he had 33 putts. T43 in putts per round and T26 for putts per greens in regulation at 1.745.
Tiger’s greens in regulation for the tournament was 65.3%, tied for 26th.
A blaring issue is in the mistake department–the making of bogeys and doubles. TW had 11 bogeys and two doubles. We used to see periods where Tiger would go very long stretches without bogeys and rounds upon rounds without doubles. Even if Tiger cut his bogeys in half and eliminated the doubles, he still would have lost to Adam Scott by 7-8 shots.
Steve Williams
Many press and bloggers are worked up about Steve Williams’s post round comments yesterday after Adam Scott’s win and for good reason. His comments seemed to be more of an FU to TW. And to me it is a bit sad and odd that after a win, a player’s caddie gets more press time than the player himself.
Williams comments like “that’s the best win I’ve ever had,” and “best week of my life” even had Jim Nantz puzzled. Me too. How one could put this WGC event above say a 15 shot win in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble, the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines with the classic playoff battle between TW and Rocco Mediate, the playoff in the PGA Championship with Bob May etc., is beyond my comprehension.
One final thought on Steve & Tiger for now
I’ve had my share of the Woods/Williams drama for now but I’m sure it is far from over. For now it is obvious that Williams has the lead following winning with Scott last week. Hell, as a caddie his 10% of Scott’s winning share is over 3x what Tiger’s winnings were. Stevie is ahead of Tiger on the money list.
And now…
And now it is time to focus on the coming week. It is PGA Championship time baby!
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
C’mon Tony, give us your predictions for the PGA Championship !
Hey Alexander thanks for the comment and visiting HOG. As you requested: my pick for the PGA Championship is Jason Day.
Grab my bag boy and shut your pie hole.