Tiger Woods Cadillac Championship: Daunting Final Round Will Haunt Woods Again

With Tiger Woods making a signature third round surge up the leaderboard at the WGC- Cadillac Championship, he will be put to test yet again during the final round on Sunday afternoon in Florida.

That test is not what we usually would expect Woods to be challenged with. We were so used to Woods making a habit of playing well and winning in the final rounds of tournaments in the past.  It is where the vintage Sunday red shirts originate from.

However, we have seen Woods struggle as of late in the fourth round.  Either his putter breaks down or mental lapses in his game prevent him from getting over that hurdle that the final round seems to create for him these days.  

The final round on Sunday, at Doral is not the place to overcome those hurdles.

Doral would be a great place to get back on track and rekindle that success of past final rounds, but with a field of this talent level, it will be hard to do no matter if he has the lead heading into Sunday or not.

His game is simply not ready, which is what we have been saying for the last few months, merely making up excuses for the mental block his putter game seems to have.

Red-hot players like Bubba Watson, Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy all stand in his way, and one of them is poised to go low in the final round at Doral because their games are at the highest level right now.

But forget the field.  Ultimately, Woods will take himself down on Sunday.

The pressure is there for Woods because he got a front row seat watching McIlroy unseat him as the hot commodity of the PGA Tour last week.  Even more, McIlroy is going incredible low on Saturday, which is something we have yet to see Woods do more than once since the resurgence of his career.

Another point is that Scott continues to perform well with Steve Williams on the bag and Woods in the field.  Do not think that that is a coincidence.

There is pressure on Woods no matter where he finishes on Saturday, which we should figure to be somewhere in the top-10.  But his game is not ready to take on a field of this talent level, with this much pressure and with his final round game being lackluster at best.