Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Lying in the weeds: Tiger Woods fine-tunes
his swing and is ready to pounce
By Ed Sherman
Chicago Tribune
(KRT)
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England—Tiger Woods didn’t waste
any time Tuesday.
Woods hit the first tee at 6 a.m. He was out on the course
long before the fans and afternoon
winds and rain blew into Royal Lytham & St. Annes.
“He does seem to enjoy it when he is out there and nobody
else is about,” said Thomas Bjorn,
who joined Woods for the dawn excursion.
Woods, though, wasn’t out for a casual round with the
boys. He has plenty of work to do on a
game that hasn’t been up to his usual standards.
Woods comes into the British Open on his worst run in more
than three years. He has finished out
of the top 10 in three straight tournaments for the first time
since 1998.
He tied for 12th at the U.S. Open, tied for 16th in the Buick
Classic and was non-factor in a tie
for 20th at the Advil Western Open.
Most players would love to endure the kind of “slump”
he’s currently going through. You can
make a nice living by finishing in the top 20.
Woods, though, plays to much loftier expectations. The high
intensity of attention magnifies
everything he does, win or lose. “When I play well, I think
it’s blown out of proportion a little bit,”
Woods said. “When I play poorly, it’s blown out of proportion.
The real truth is somewhere in
between.”
Woods then defended his recent play, by adding, “I’m
not struggling to break 90.”
He is struggling to break 70 on a consistent basis. While
he enjoys 6 a.m. practice rounds, he
doesn’t like getting early tee times on the weekend. It’s
the price he has paid for being down on the
leaderboard during the past three tournaments.
“I’m kind of there on Saturday and Sunday,”
Woods said. “It is just not quite all the way there.”
Woods said a relatively minor swing flaw has dominoed into
other things. Ask him for an
explanation, and he offers Woods-speak dissertation on swing
plane, wrist angle and trying to get my
“left arm a little better.”
The bottom line: Woods feels better about his game.
“It was something very small, very minor,” Woods
said. “Once I fixed that, everything has
seemed to come back, and I am starting to hit the ball the way
I know I can hit it.”
Bjorn saw a difference Tuesday. He played with Woods during
the first two rounds of the U.S.
Open at Southern Hills.
“He did not play his best golf (at the Open),” Bjorn
said. “I see some changes in his game since
then. His stroke looks a lot better. He looks like he is right
back where he is at his best. He looks very
confident, very relaxed.”
Woods did seem loose following his annual pre-Open golf and
fishing trip to Ireland. He didn’t
flinch when his news conference started with a British tabloid
reporter asking him if he had any plans to
get married.
Woods’ media gathering did veer into golf-related topics,
specifically Royal Lytham. The course
is much different than wide-open St. Andrews, which Woods dominated
in his victory last year.
Woods didn’t hit one bunker at St. Andrews. He will be hard-pressed
to do the same at Royal
Lytham, which will play tight with deep rough.
The layout has sparked some talk that the course doesn’t
fit Woods’ game. Woods did shoot a
66 here as an amateur in 1996, but the conditions were much more
benign.
Ernie Els speculated that Woods’ length wouldn’t
be an advantage on Lytham. Tom Lehman, the
1996 winner here, says the premium is on accuracy and finding
the right distance with the irons.
Woods struggled on both counts at the Western. Still, if Woods
is on his game, Lehman says,
“There is no course that Tiger can’t play.”
For his part, Woods thinks all the debate over whether a particular
course suits his style is
overrated.
“I get a big kick out of hearing you (media) guys talk
about that kind of stuff,” Woods said. “If
you are playing well that week, whether the course is brutally
hard or incredibly easy, you’re going to
score well.”
Woods isn’t looking for any omens coming into the first
round Thursday. He says he has played
well coming into a major and come out with little. The opposite
also has occurred. He didn’t feel
comfortable with his swing before the Masters, and all he did
was win his fourth straight major.
In other words, Woods doesn’t seem too worried about
his recent play.
“The nature of golf is that it changes,” Woods said.
“It is a lot of fun to try to figure out.”
© 2001, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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