What To Make Of Tiger Woods

It's been nearly 2 and a half years since the downfall of Tiger Woods began in November of 2009. There's no real point in rehashing that debacle other to point out that Tiger Woods hasn't won a PGA tour event since and has struggled mightily to regain the form which had vaulted him into the pantheon on the greatest golfers in history (oh and also resulted in this dope track from Maino). We have seen some flashes of the old Tiger from time to time but the question remains: Will he be able to win the 5 Major Championships he needs to surpass Jack Nicklaus? A feat everyone thought would be just a formality not so long ago.

I know a lot of people really dislike Tiger, whether it's because he was a cheating man-whore, has a penchant for arrogant and testy interviews when in a bad mood or simply because he curses and demonstratively shows his emotions on the golf course. Those are all legit and understandable reasons but I for one have really never had anything against the man. The biggest reason for that is because I love nothing more than seeing greatness happen in sports and like it or not, there is no one better at playing great golf than Tiger Woods, period. Tiger reminded the sports world of that on Sunday at the Honda Classic. Tiger barely made the cut after two rounds thanks to a birdie-birdie finish on Friday to get to 1-under and made little noise on Saturday finishing at 2-under. Tiger then came out roaring on Sunday shooting an impressive 8-under 62 (the best final round score of his career) that featured 4 birdies and a pair of eagles on the back nine and entered the clubhouse just 1 shot off the lead at 10-under. Tiger's rally came up just short as Rory McIlroy was able to hold for the win (and the world's #1 ranking) but showed that Eldrick can still bring the ruckus.

This weekend was yet another example of the inconsistent play we have seen from Tiger since his return to the PGA last year and he has yet to put 4 great rounds of golf together. A few weeks ago Tiger was among the leaders after three rounds at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am but failed to show that final round killer instinct that had won him 71 PGA Tour events in his career, shooting a disappointing 75 and finishing the tournament in 15th place.

While his play has been up and down it is clear to me that Tiger has been getting better, despite the results. When he first came back to the tour he could barely land a drive on the fairway and was slicing shots all over the course. Tiger has mightily improved his accuracy off the tee and also with his approach shots (just check out the two eagles from Sunday). In the early goings of this season it has been the putter than has failed him. The fact that Tiger has been able to tighten his game up so much over the past year is really encouraging and after seeing how lethal he was on the greens on Sunday I think we may be getting to a point where it's only a matter of time before Tiger is back challenging for his old Number 1 ranking. I want to see this guy tear up the golf course like he used to because there really is nothing like it.