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Originally Posted by Polar Bear
I agree with much you say...especially regarding his downfall after "the incident". But I very much disagree with the above. Tiger in his prime was long AND accurate. Nobody, including Tiger, wins majors...especially the US Open...playing consistently out of the rough.
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He certainly had streaks where he hit it extremely well. He ball striking at the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach may have been the best anyone has ever seen. But, overall, he was never in the top statistics in driving accuracy or total driving even though he was he consistently in the top ten in driving distance. Don't forget, he would hit a lot of irons and three woods off the tees in US Opens. Remember how he won the British at Royal Liverpool in 2006? I don't know if he hit a driver all week. As long as he could hit a two iron, he didn't need to hit driver to win those US Opens.
Also, look at the courses where he won his US Opens, Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines and Beth Page Black. Pebble and Torrey are sea side courses where the rough doesn't grow as thick as say a Wing Foot or Medina. Pebble was also very short and Beth Page was not overly long. They were courses where he could hit irons off the tees. At Torrey, he won in a playoff against Rocco Mediate of all people. Now, I love Rocco. He's a very good player and one of the true characters and nice guys in all of sports. But would anyone ever expect him to win a US Open? The course just wasn't set up all that hard.
The other majors reward length over distance. He didn't have to be very accurate to win at Augusta or The PGA or British for the most part. Consider that John Daly won the PGA Championship and the British Open.
The statistic that changed the most when Tiger began to decline was three putt avoidance. He began three putting from long distances. In fact all of his putting stats fell. He wasn't making all the short putts for birdies or pars that he had been making for years. His up and down percentages from various distances fell dramatically as well. Some of his ball striking stats declined, but not as much as his short game stats.