Can Tiger Woods Continue To Improve at the Arnold Palmer Invitational?

When Tiger Woods ended his 2008 season prematurely to undergo reconstructive ACL surgery, he was in the midst of one of the most dominant streaks of his career.

Between late 2007 and early 2008, Woods won nine of 12 events and did not finish outside of the top-five in those three events he didn’t happen to win. 

The last time we saw Tiger Woods, we saw a man so incredibly dominant that he was able to beat 155 of the best players on the planet while playing on one leg at the US Open.

Not since Ben Hogan returned a year after a near fatal car accident to win the 1950 US Open at Merion Golf Club has the golf world seen such a feat of courageousness.

So, it should come as no surprise that there are many casual golf fans out there that actually believe Woods’ return to the PGA Tour after an eight month layoff has been disappointing simply because he has not yet won.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sure, it was surprising when Woods made an early exit from the Accenture Match Play Championship. 

However, we have to remember that Woods had not played a professional event in nearly nine months when he showed up in the dessert for the Accenture Match Play Championship.

As Woods personally admitted, he had not even walked many rounds of golf prior to playing a practice round the day before his first match.

Sure, we didn’t see the Tiger Woods of old out in the dessert, but we also didn’t see some run-of-the-mill professional golfer. Although Woods was defeated by a red hot Tim Clarke, he was still six-under-par through 32 holes prior to being eliminated.

Woods’ first stroke-play event was the WGC-CA Championship, which is an event he has won six times.

He didn’t win his first event back so he would have to win the WGC-CA Championship...right?

Well, no, believe it or not Tiger Woods does not win every tournament he plays in.

Woods’ career winning percentage is currently at 28.9 percent, which is absolutely mind-boggling.

Just to put that into perspective, Nicklaus’ winning percentage was never higher than 17 percent at any point during his career.

So, although Tiger Woods can at times appear to be unbeatable, he is statistically winning just three out of every ten events he enters—an incredible feat in its own right, but a statistic that might come as a surprise to those casual golf fans who believe Woods wins every tournament he plays in and are shocked when he doesn’t.

Phil Mickelson certainly stole the show at Doral a couple of weeks ago, but Woods’ performance should in no way be viewed as disappointing.

Despite being unable to hit an approach shot anywhere near the hole during his first round and lipping-out countless putts throughout his next three rounds, Woods still managed to finish tied for ninth place at the WGC-CA Championship, just eight strokes off the lead.

Sure, eight strokes may seen like a large margin; however, if Woods hit a few better short irons on Thursday and some of those lip-outs happened to drop on Friday-Sunday, Woods’ name would have likely appeared within the top-five on the leaderboard and he might have even made a run at Mickelson.

Woods’ game is not 100 percent, there is no question about that and we would be fools to believe that no rust whatsoever would have accumulated on his game following a nine month layoff.

But, if Woods is able to finish tied for ninth at his first stroke play event in nine months with a game that is no where near his best, what is he possibly going to do when he eventually shakes that last bit of rust off his game? 

Throughout the course of his career, the one less-than-stellar aspect of Woods game has been his accuracy off the tee.

Woods has spent the better part of his career fighting a constant battle with the right rough.

As much as Woods and swing coach Hank Haney will deny it, Woods’ swing is without question a lot more controlled and no longer contains the vicious torque that probably contributed to his knee problems.

Woods’ new, significantly more controlled swing has allowed him to finally experience some accuracy off the tee.

During his great run between 2007 and 2008, Woods never hit more than 60 percent of

fairways off the tee.

So far in 2009, Woods has hit just under 61 percent of fairways off the tee and when he does miss the fairway, in most cases it is not by much.

According to PGA Tour Shot Link, Woods is hitting 63.64 percent of greens in regulation after finding the rough with his tee shot. 

This ranks fifth on tour and also demonstrates that although he is still finding the rough almost 40 percent of the time off the tee, he is not putting himself in such a bad position that he is unable to still reach the green in regulation.

Yes, Woods has not won yet and has not even contended in his first two events back on the PGA Tour.

However, Woods’ struggles so far have been due more to his putting woes than anything else.

Throughout his first two events in 2009, Woods has made just 31.58 percent of putts between 5-15’ and just 11.76 percent of putts between 15-25’, neither of which rank better than 149th on the PGA Tour.

The fact that Woods is struggling on the greens should not be in any way concerning.

Woods is arguably the greatest clutch putter in the history of the game and we have no reason to believe that he will not find his putting stroke over the next few weeks.

Woods might not win the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week, and, although it might break many golf fans hearts, he might not even win the Masters in a few weeks.

However, he is without question on the right track and when he does find his putting stroke and combines that with his new-found accuracy off the tee, we might see a Tiger Woods that is even better than he was before the injury.

It might not happen this week or this month, but you can sure bet on it happening some time in the near future.