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| Tiger Woods |
I DIDN’T SEE A SINGLE SHOT. While Tiger Woods was on his way to a five-shot victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his seventh win at Bay Hill, I was looking at colleges with my oldest daughter. I was unplugged: no golf, no March Madness, no computer, no email, no Tweets. Zip.
Hey, you know what? It was great. I saw “The Hunger Games” with my daughters, slept in, lounged around at Holiday Inn and ate too much. It was a family road trip weekend. Can’t beat that.
So, obviously, I’m extremely late to the Tiger Is Back Party. Woods finally put it together at a course and event where he has had enormous success. It was his 72nd PGA Tour victory, which puts him within one win of golf immortal Jack Nicklaus.
The numbers tell the story.
First, it had been 923 days and 26 events since Tiger’s last official win on the PGA Tour, the 2009 BMW Championship. Opening with 69 and 65, Woods posted four rounds under par on a Bay Hill layout that was playing especially tough on the weekend.
Four good rounds. That’s what had been missing. All facets of Tiger’s game needed to click, and they did in Orlando. Being so late to the party, there wasn’t much for me to see except game stories, a few highlights and the typical Tiger hyperbole ratcheted up a few notches. But I did look at his tournament stats at PGATour.com. They explain a lot about his 13-under romp:
Birdies: 1 (20 birdies)
Driving distance: 11 (294.6 yards)
Driving accuracy: T29 (64.3%)
Sand saves: T5 (75%)
Strokes gained putting: T1 (1.445)
Greens in regulation: T1 (79.2%)
“It’s not like winning a major championship or anything,” Tiger said. “But it certainly feels really good.”
The Masters tees off in two weeks, and, now, many expect Tiger Woods to win his fifth Green Jacket.
Armchair Golf Blog,I caught a few of the holes & waited to watch the replay on GolfChannel…
His driving stats reminds me of his days under Butch but all in all he seems comfortable once again….
Seems like the Tiger of Old,almost perfect except for 1 or 2 errant shots on a Sunday.
It's good to see Tiger playing Golf like he did prior to the incident….
But lets see how his 1st round at Augusta goes.
With his game coming together, it would be surprising if Tiger isn't in the mix at Augusta. He usually is. And if he putts well …
The GIR and sand saves stats are great. I'm anxious to see how he does this weekend. It's good to see him playing well again.