Quote:
Originally Posted by kcrazorbackfan
I think he'll try to come back and play, but he will never, ever be the same player. I'll go as far to say he'll never be in contention again going into a Sunday. The swing changes (why, oh why?) didn't work and he has too much going on in that 6" space between his ears, his worse distance in golf right now. No one fears him anymore, especially the young guns. Stick a fork in him, he is well done.
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I honestly don't think that swing changes have ever had anything to do with his success, or lack thereof. The strongest part of Tiger's game when he was winning was his short game. He did have tournaments where he struck the ball very well, but he was never a great driver or iron player. He hit it long but was never very accurate. What he did better than anyone else was to get it in the hole. He made miles of putts and got the ball up and down from impossible places. He was statistically, the best chipper and pitcher of the golf ball ever.
I think that your second point is very valid however. His fall began right after the "incident" which led to the divorce. He's won very little since then and has really not contended very often. Good golf, especially at the top level, depends more on confidence than anything else. Tiger had more confidence than anyone as did Jack Nicklaus.
Jack once said, "I know that I can beat my opponent and he knows that I can beat him. He also knows that I know that I can beat him." That means more than the ability to hit it well or make putts. I think that something happened to Tiger's confidence when his wife caught him and he was exposed to the world.
When you have confidence, you look at where you want the ball to end up and hit there. When you don't have confidence, you start looking at all the places it might end up if you miss.