Running Tiger Woods thread

How did Elway finish?

 

Neil Armstrong went out on top.

Oh yeah, and:

Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

 

With very pedestrian stats, and getting dragged across the finish line by Terrell Davis. One game against the Falcons, whose best DB was out soliciting $40 prostitutes the night before, did not erase that year.

And yes, Sampras put one great run together at the US Open. He also lost to George Bastl at Wimbledon, his best surface, in the second round the same year. He was bad throughout that year. He had one great tournament. Does Tiger have one more great tournament? Maybe. But he isn't putting together any kind of sustained run, IMO.

 

Mussina's kind of a cool one. Won 20 games for the first time. Hung it up.

(Caveat: Wins are stupid.)

 

82.

The man shot an 82.

You could say people have come back in sports -- Agassi comes to mind, after what we later learned was a raging meth addiction -- but for someone that far along to fall that far, no, I don't believe we've ever seen that.

 

Didn't McIlroy have a couple Friday 80s or very high 70s just last year?

 

I just think it's foolish to make blanket statements that someone will never ever do something in golf (even more foolish than me thinking Tiger can recover). Golf! It's not like I'm predicting a 46-year-old is going to lead the NBA in scoring. This is a sport where a 59-year-old fossil can win a major competition.

The 82, yeah, horrible, but is it anymore of a disqualifier than Darren Clarke's career leading up to the 2011 British Open title? Clarke in the majors from 2007 Masters through 2011 U.S. Open: Cut. DNP. Cut. T42. DNP. DNP. DNP. Cut. DNP. Cut. T52. Cut. DNP. DNP. T44. T48. DNP. DNP. And then he won the British. (I get it, comparing Tiger to Darren Clarke is a sign of how far he's fallen.)

Or Angel Cabrera before his near-victory at the 2013 Masters. 10 majors before that tourney. Cut. Cut. Cut. T32. T46. Cut. Cut. Playoff in Masters.

I just don't see Tiger never again putting himself in position on Sunday, and if he does, I think he can win. Maybe it'd be a fluke, and that's a sign of how bad he's gotten. But flukes have won a lot of majors.

I do think it'd be at Augusta or the British. Those are the two places he's done pretty well post-scandal. Three T4s at The Masters since 2010, a T3 and T6 at the British. I can see him pulling one out at one of those spots, whether at 40 or 46.

 

Nicklaus shot 83 in the 1981 British Open and won the Masters in '86.

 

Hey, don't talk about my buddy Tom like that.

 

Jaguars’ Josh Scobee challenges Tiger Woods to round of golf — at $100,000 a hole - The Washington Post

 

I would caution that not all 82s are created equal. It's one thing to shoot in the 80s when there is wind and the course is set up for a major championship. (Rory shot an 80 the day he started Sunday with a four shot lead at the Masters.)

It's another to shoot in the 80s at the Phoenix Open and you're blading 4 irons over the green because you're terrified hit a wedge off a tight lie. That's what has everyone freaked out and saying he's done. (The Anonymous tour pro who does the Sunday confidential thing for Golf.com says "He's done.") It's the equivalent of Jordan suddenly shooting FTs like Shaq, just brick after brick. Something is misfiring in his brain. The "between patterns" stuff is fine for your full swing but bullshit for your short game. That's not it. He's mentally fried. And failing in public repeatedly (while actually noble in a way) isn't going to help.

If we're talking about majors, his lifetime (or through 65 anyway) exceptions at the Masters and British will help. He could lose it for a long time and still contend at Augusta one year (let's say an 80 year old Butch agrees to give him two weeks of lessons in 2025 and it clicks again), but I think with the way it's going now, the USGA may need to use a special exemption to get him into the U.S. Open field after 2018 when his 10 year exemption runs out.

 

McIlroy shot in the 80s at the Memorial. It comes back to me now. Three months later, he's on a streak like Woods in 2000. The margins are very fine in that sport.