Tiger Woods: The Pursuit of Major Records

As another season slips by without a major added to the tally for Tiger, fans of his are growing increasingly anxious if he will beat Jacks record or even if he will add another major. I would call myself a fan of Mr. Woods and I believe he is the greatest golfer the game has ever seen, he’s one of the fittest players out on the circuit, one of the biggest hitters when he decides to pull a driver out of the bag and one of the hottest putters in the world, which was proved at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational this year when he annihilated the field by being two and half strokes better than everyone on the course just on the greens. He had more wins than anyone else on the PGA Tour this season including The Players Championship, the unofficial 5^th Major, and also The Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, a course that Tiger has dominated for years.

                Majors in the past few seasons have been a completely different story having not won since his victory at the US Open in 2008. He did get incredibly close to number 15 the following season at the US PGA Championships but lost in a play off to Y.E Yang. Up to that Sunday at Hazeltine National, Tiger was a perfect 14 from 14 Major titles when leading after the 3^rd round and since then his weekend form really hasn’t been the same high class standards you would expect from someone that held the number 1 spot in the World Golf Rankings for 659 weeks over the whole of his career. So what has changed? After starting to work with his new coach Sean Foley, he regularly comments that his swing is the best it’s ever been and in the last two seasons he has gone into 5 of the 8 Majors coming off the back of a win. Let’s have a look at the statistics then. Back in 2001 (arguably his best season) Tiger’s average driving distance was 297.6 yards which was 3^rd best on the tour, in 2013 his average had dropped down 293.2, a 4 yard difference but he had dropped down to become the 49^th longest hitter on the PGA Tour. Scrambling as well, in ’01 he got up and down 69% of the time and that was the best in the field and now in 2013 he has dropped 9% and he has lost almost 50 places and is also down to 49^th in the rankings. Okay those stats are showing a drop in performance but it’s not that big of a drop? All of the commentators are saying that since Woods’ injury the rest of the players on the course aren’t scared of him, that when the annual trip to Augusta comes around and they hear the galleries cheers echoing around the golf course and see Tigers name slowly creeping up the leader board, they don’t get intimidated. They shrug it off and make the crowd cheer about something else.

                I think it is obvious that Tiger is still a fantastic player which has been proved by his outstanding performances across the last few seasons but what is also clear now is that the rest of the players out there competing have stepped up their game which is exactly what Woods did when he first came on to the scene, he got fitter, practiced harder than anyone else and that’s why he blew the field away. Now there is a level playing field it’s going to become a lot more difficult to win but golf would be boring if it was easy. It’s the great feeling when you finally break through and achieve your goals which keep us coming back. One question remains though. Will Tiger Woods achieve his goals and beat the 18 major record?