Inconsistency Is Tiger Woods' New Reality

Tiger Woods will re-join the PGA Tour this week at the Wells Fargo Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The last time Woods attended the Wells Fargo Championship was in 2010 where he posted rounds of 74-79 and missed the cut by a mile.

Most figured Woods had hit rock bottom by that point, but the following week he withdrew from the Players Championship with a neck injury that had never been made public until he hit only one of the first seven fairways during the final round at TPC Sawgrass.

As we all know, Woods’ “rock bottom” would actually last until late 2011 when he finally broke through with a “Silly Season” win at the Chevron World Challenge. He then officially got the monkey off his back with a win the 2012 Arnold Palmer Invitational this past March.

In terms of the major championships, Woods hasn’t hoisted golf’s most prestigious hardware since June of 2008.

Just to put that into perspective, in July of 2008, George W. Bush was still president, Facebook was still just taking off and no one had ever heard of Twitter. The American economy was still running full steam ahead. Lehman Brothers was still a highly successful and well-respected investment firm and 99.9% of Americans had never heard the words “sub-prime loan”.

Folks, that is long time to go without winning a major championship.

So, what does the future hold for Woods?

Well, he’s certainly been hitting the ball better in 2012.

Woods currently ranks 36th in tour in driving accuracy, which may not sound overly impressive but is actually just the second time he’s cracked the top-100 since 2001.  

Woods also ranks ninth on tour in Stroke Gained Putting, which is the first time he’s cracked the top-10 since 2009.

But despite a vast improvement in these areas, Woods is still struggling with consistency issues when it comes to the two most important clubs in his bag – the driver and the putter.

For example, even during Woods’ win at the Arnold Palmer invitational earlier this year, which was his first official PGA Tour victory since the 2009 BMW Championship, Woods hit 71 percent of fairways and 94 percent of greens in regulation during round two. He does that only to follow it up the very next day with a poor ball-striking round where he hit just 50 percent of fairways and 61 percent of greens in regulation.

Woods may sink every putt from inside of 15 feet one day only to miss four putts from inside of five feet the very next day.

Woods still has the ability to win on any given week, he’s already demonstrated that this year.  

However, the inconsistency with his driver and particularly his putter will likely lead to more inconsistent results for Woods in the immediate future.

Prior to November of 2009, the words “Tiger Woods” and “Inconsistent” rarely if ever appeared in the same sentence.

Fast forward three years and it’s a reality that Woods simply must deal with.

Woods’ ball-striking, his touch on the greens, his short-game, etc. may come and go from week to week and even round to round.

This is the new reality for a 36-year-old man who’s been put through the ringer both on and off the course. Now, he clearly has some demons lurking somewhere in the back of his mind.  

The quicker Woods can come to terms with the fact that he will no longer be the Woods of 2000-2001 or 2006-2008, the quicker he can move on and begin addressing what he can control.

For the first time in his career, Woods may very well become a member of the 70-80-20 club.  

It has long been said that 70 percent of professional golfers make 80 percent of their yearly earnings at just 20 percent of the tournaments they attend. Essentially most players will get hot for a few weeks or a month, have a couple of top-5 finishes and maybe even throw in a win.  

Even a player like Phil Mickelson will come close to falling within the 70-80-20 club. Mickelson often gets hot for a stretch and then disappears for a while. The only difference is that Mickelson’s hot streaks often include a couple of wins, thus making his 20 percent subjectively larger compared to that of the average tour pro in terms of monetary value and PGA Tour victories.  

Woods, on the other hand, was the exception to this rule. Every time Woods teed it up there was an excellent chance that he’d be in contention on Sunday afternoon.

That is no longer the case.

Woods could very well become a member of the 70-80-20 club for the remainder of his career. That doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t achieve his ultimate goal of winning 18 majors, he just better make sure that those major championships fall within the 20 percent of tournaments he performs well in.   

When it comes to Woods, inconsistency is the new buzz word. Heading into this week’s Wells Fargo Championship, it would come as no surprise if Woods won the event by 5 strokes, and it would also come as no surprise if he missed the cut.

That’s just Woods’ new reality.  

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