Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Mental Mistake
Is it possible the golfing world saw something new and foreign out of Tiger Woods this week? A mental mistake?
Tiger doesn’t make mental errors or at least he hasn’t since about 17, when he started dominating the U.S. Amateur. But Sunday on #15 at Augusta when he went for the green and eagle, he made a bad call. It wasn’t an awful, inexplicable, inexcusable decision; he was down a couple of shots with only four holes to play. However, he was facing far less experienced, less seasoned, competition. Perhaps, he was still mad about his missed birdie put at #14. But rare as it is, Tiger Woods made the wrong call.
It feels shocking to write it. He made the Phil Mickelson call,the Hefty Lefty play. He should have laid up from the second cut of rough. Yes, he saved his par after he hit it in the water, a great par save. But if he had laid up and made an almost sure birdie, instead of playing #17 and #18 two behind eventual champ Zach Johnson, he’d a been only one stroke back. The way Augusta was playing uber-tough, one stroke in two holes would have been so much less pressure. As was, Tiger still would have had a chance to make a birdie on #18 to force a playoff, instead of having to hole out from the fairway.
On Sunday at the Masters, on #15 , for the first time in many’s a year Tiger made the Phil play, tried to go for it all at once, tried to make up the whole deficit in one fell swoop with an eagle from the second cut. In an un-Tiger like instant the miraculous didn’t come, and he hit it in the water. For a brief moment the Clarion flashed to a statistic CBS had been running all day, Tiger’s never won a Major coming from behind after round three. He didn’t come Sunday, either. Mortal Tiger, no flaw his, we’re all mortal. Great a champion as he is, when he didn’t roll in his biride put on the par 3, 16th, a mental error had the fat lady singing Zach Johnson a sweet, sweet song.
Tiger doesn’t make mental errors or at least he hasn’t since about 17, when he started dominating the U.S. Amateur. But Sunday on #15 at Augusta when he went for the green and eagle, he made a bad call. It wasn’t an awful, inexplicable, inexcusable decision; he was down a couple of shots with only four holes to play. However, he was facing far less experienced, less seasoned, competition. Perhaps, he was still mad about his missed birdie put at #14. But rare as it is, Tiger Woods made the wrong call.
It feels shocking to write it. He made the Phil Mickelson call,the Hefty Lefty play. He should have laid up from the second cut of rough. Yes, he saved his par after he hit it in the water, a great par save. But if he had laid up and made an almost sure birdie, instead of playing #17 and #18 two behind eventual champ Zach Johnson, he’d a been only one stroke back. The way Augusta was playing uber-tough, one stroke in two holes would have been so much less pressure. As was, Tiger still would have had a chance to make a birdie on #18 to force a playoff, instead of having to hole out from the fairway.
On Sunday at the Masters, on #15 , for the first time in many’s a year Tiger made the Phil play, tried to go for it all at once, tried to make up the whole deficit in one fell swoop with an eagle from the second cut. In an un-Tiger like instant the miraculous didn’t come, and he hit it in the water. For a brief moment the Clarion flashed to a statistic CBS had been running all day, Tiger’s never won a Major coming from behind after round three. He didn’t come Sunday, either. Mortal Tiger, no flaw his, we’re all mortal. Great a champion as he is, when he didn’t roll in his biride put on the par 3, 16th, a mental error had the fat lady singing Zach Johnson a sweet, sweet song.
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