TT postscript: Drive for show, putt like a schmo

[Nergal]

 

Here are some things I think I think after I saw Tiger Woods putt like me for four days at The Northern Trust. He shot a final-round 70 to end the tournament at 4 under par at Ridgewood Country Club:

• I could almost take a copy of my report from yesterday and just repost it today. The story remained the same: driving was awesome, putting was not.

• On Saturday, we started with the good, so let’s start with the bad, just to mix it up. It was maddening to watch Tiger miss putt after putt after putt for the fourth straight day. Although his final number of putts was 28 on Sunday, he missed so many that were makeable. Now, you don’t expect to make them all (well, Tiger probably does), but making some would’ve been nice. The ones from 6 feet on five, 9 feet on 11 and 12 feet on 18 are the ones that come to mind first. But there were another six from around that 18- 20-foot range that didn’t drop.

“Just the way it goes,” he said afterward. “You have good weeks and you have bad weeks. The greens, sometimes they look good to you. Sometimes they don’t. All of my good putts basically went in at Bellerive, and the bad putts lipped out. This week, the good putts lipped out and the bad ones didn’t have a chance. That’s the way it goes.”

The biggest frustration for the putts not falling was momentum. No one has ever played on momentum as much as Tiger. So, when one, then two, then three putts don’t fall, he knows he’s on the wrong side of it.

“That’s what you’re seeing is that I’m close and just one shot here, one shot there, per day, flips momentum,” he said. “It’s just looking for one shot a day here and there, and you just never know when that shot may come.”

• The driving, again, was beautiful. He hit nine of 14 greens and the misses, other than the par-5 13th, were never by much. This has been something that Tiger fans have to be excited about. His performance on Saturday was great, but it may have been even better on Sunday.