Tiger Woods Cadillac Championship: Mediocre Showing Must Change in Round 3

Tiger Woods needs to step up his game in Round 3 of the 2012 Cadillac Championship if he wants to come away with anything other than disappointment.

Right now, his mediocre performance is just not going to do, especially for someone who wants to make the epic career comeback that he does.

To be fair to Woods, the bigger you are the higher you fall, so his meteoric fall from grace was nothing short of epic. Most wouldn't even be able to consider bouncing back from such personal scandal and professional struggle, so credit to where credit is due.

At the very least, Tiger has the guts to try to make a comeback, and that’s more than some of us would be able to say about ourselves.

Mediocre is just not going to cut it anymore, though. In the past, Tiger could have an off day and still be leaps and bounds ahead of the rest. That’s not the case anymore.

If he wants to make this comeback to the top of the world, he cannot be content. I may be reading too much into this, but according to quotes found in Robert Lusetich’s recent article on FoxSports.com, that’s exactly what he sounds like:

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For Woods, the battle is still long, though he’d like to believe the end is near.

He didn’t do much wrong in the second round, but he needs to do more right if he’s to keep up with the Watsons, or the Scotts, or the Roses, all of whom are double digits under par.

Woods hit nine fairways — and, apart from a pull hook off the 12th, the misses were small — and 14 greens in regulation.

He took 28 putts, but left a lot of birdies out there.

“This is the highest score I could have shot today, for sure,” Woods said. “It could have been pretty low today.

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Woods needs to step up his game. The field has gotten a lot younger and it is far more talented. Long gone are the days of golf being Tiger and everybody else. Now he’s got to deal with the likes of a very talented and young Rory McIlroy, world No. 2 Luke Donald, and even current leader and long-bomber Bubba Watson.

No longer can Tiger just go out and be Tiger. He’s got to scratch and claw his way up the leaderboard.

Nobody remembers the teams that make the epic comeback but still find a way to lose it at the end.

In Tiger’s case, he’s the greatest golfer of our time and perhaps ever, so he doesn’t need to worry about not being remembered.

However, he does have a legacy to think about and right now, he’s leaving quite a mediocre product out on the course.