Tiger Woods at 2012 BMW Championship : Round 3 Highlights Woods' Weaknesses

Tiger Woods' year has been a series of ups and downs—lately, far more downs than ups.

And throughout the entire year, there has been at least one common thread throughout his worst performances: an inability to sustain his level of play after the second round.

The BMW Championship has been yet another example of the same story for Woods: He was excellent throughout the first two days of the tournament, shooting a 65 and a 67, and then he semi-imploded in the third round, shooting a 71 to drop himself down to eighth place while the likes of Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy remained atop the leaderboard.

Woods started Saturday in second place, and he ended it in eighth. His 71 wasn't the worst score he's ever posted, but on a day when Mickelson (64), Adam Scott (66) and Rory McIlroy (69) were all able to hang in there, a 71 just wasn't acceptable.

Now, with one round left, Woods has all but played himself out of contention for the win—again. And it all went wrong in the third round, again.

According to GolfChannel.com's Jay Coffin, Woods bogeyed four holes on the front nine before recovering to some extent on the back nine. But it was too little, too late. If Woods is ever going to be the Tiger of old, he needs to find some way to start the third round strong—something he's been unable to do this year at the PGA Championship, at the British Open, at the U.S. Open and even at the Memorial, which he still managed to win.

Woods just hasn't been able to pull it together—and keep it together—in all four rounds. And until he manages to do that, he isn't going to be the Tiger of old, the Tiger we got used to seeing four or five years ago.

No matter how badly we all want to see him succeed, Woods just isn't ready yet. That much has been apparent throughout this entire year. He's come close to becoming his former self—and without a doubt, this year has been better to him than the last two—but he's still not the same Tiger who stands as the perennial favorite from the moment he tees off.

He's still not the Tiger who is a threat to win every Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship.

Woods still has a long way to go before he's even close to rediscovering the form that saw him become one of the greatest golfers in history, no matter how eager we are to see it happen right now. The BMW Championship was only the latest hint at what we already knew.