Running Tiger Woods thread

Not quite. He shot a 79 in 2012.

 

The difference is this: Every great had a memorably bad round or two. Tiger's problem is not a memorably bad round. Tiger's problem is the state of his game. By that I mean this: If he teed if up this weekend or next he'd more likely shoot another 82 than be in contention. Right now, 82 is not out of the question any time he tees it up. That was never the case for Nicklaus at age 39.

 

No golfer in the history of professional golf has won five flukes in a major championship. Flukes will not be good enough for Tiger to surpass Jack. And I say this as an unabashed fan of Tiger. He's the guy who got me to enjoy watching golf. But he no longer has a chance to surpass Jack.

 

Oh yeah, totally agree about flukeing you way to four or five more. That won't happen. But I'm saying it's ridiculous to make a broad claim that he can never even win a single major again when there are so many examples of flukes winning 1 time.

I am still holding out the chance of four, but I do admit membership in our Team 19 club has dwindled to three members and we're probably going to be losing our office space due to a steep decline in membership dues.

 

TW's 82 was bad. Muni course, six-pack bad.
If his game is nerves and injuries he's in denial.
Reading his statement I took it to mean he'll back, sooner rather than later.
When he said break, I took it to mean 4 weeks without a club in his hand, two weeks of practice, a tune up and Augusta.

I don't think we've seen TW's last round of major golf. His best? Probably.

 

So his U.S. Open exemption runs out in 2018. Are the other three majors lifetime exemptions?

 

The other three give lifetime exemptions to former champs through age 60, I believe.

 

The USGA has the right to offer a special exemption into the U.S. Open to anyone, so Tiger can play well beyond '18 if he expresses a desire to do so.

 

Did the Masters change? I remember a few years back there was a much older guy, maybe Miller Barber, who shot an embarrassingly high score. He had some kind of endorsement deal that made it worth his while to go through the motions.

 

The Masters used to give total lifetime exemptions — it's how Billy Casper shot 103 — but started nudging people out in 2002 under Hootie.

Old champions phased out at Augusta

 

Yep, it was Casper I'm thinking of.

 

Pos wrote a column about it when Casper died last week. His actual score was 106, but he didn't turn in his card.

Billy Casper Personified The True Meaning of a Great Champion | Golf Channel