Tiger Woods To Face a Much Tougher Opponent at This Year's Masters

Can anyone step up and challenge Tiger Woods at Augusta this week? 

That is the big question on everyone’s mind.

Could it be Phil Mickelson?

Could it be Padraig Harrington as he tries for his third consecutive major win?

Could the red-hot, silky-smooth Geoff Ogilvy finally figure out how to play Augusta National this week?

Do any of the young teen phenoms yet have what it takes to win a major championship?

All of those previous questions are virtually irrelevant as Tiger Woods’ biggest challenge this week will not come from any player in the field.  Woods has something far larger and more ferocious to worry about this week than any one player.

With all of the analysis and coverage of modern-day major championships, it’s easy to forget that each player is ultimately competing against the golf course and not other golfers.

We often get so involved in dissecting the field and predicting who might go head-to-head down the stretch that we can forget about the main objective of a golf tournament, which is to get around 72 holes in less strokes than anyone else. 

How well a player is able to score on the golf course is the only thing that he can truly control in any given tournament.  

Tiger cannot control how well Mickelson, Garcia, Harrington, Ogilvy, or anyone else plays the course.  He can only control his score over 72 holes at Augusta National.

As Woods embarks on his first major since his now-legendary win at the 2008 US Open almost ten months ago, he is facing a golf course that has given him some trouble in recent years.

Since Woods burst onto the scene and completely demolished Augusta National back in 1997 with what at the time seemed like herculean length at the tee, the powers that be at Augusta National Golf Club went into a frenzy to ensure that nothing like this would ever happen again.

The course was lengthened by more than 500 yards in less than ten years. 

Trees were added and fairways were significantly narrowed around the landing areas.

The new Augusta National places a premium on accuracy off the tee and accuracy with the long irons if a player does choose to attack any of the par-fives.

The last two winners at Augusta, Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman, finished first and second in driving accuracy and each opted to lay up on virtually ever par-five on the course.

As dominant as Woods has been over the past 13 years, the one aspect of his game that his given him the most trouble has been his level of accuracy off the tee.

One of the main factors in Woods’ incredible success at the majors his been his ability to miss the fairway, yet still reach the green in regulation.

The thick, dense rough that somehow appears to lengthen with each additional major, seems to have less of an effect on Woods than any other player.

There are few instances where the rough is longer or thicker than at the US Open.

According to PGA Tour’s ShotLink, at US Opens between 2002 and 2008, Woods hit more than 57 percent of greens in regulation from locations other than the fairway, while the rest of the field hit just 49 percent.

This is a significant advantage for Woods in that he is still able to get the ball out of the thick major championship rough and onto the green far more often than the competition.

If Woods does somehow manage to miss the green in regulation and land in that thick rough surrounding the green, it’s still not much of a problem for him.

Over the past two seasons, Woods has finished first on the tour in scrambling from the rough.

So, what does all of this mean?

Well, it means that at most major championships, Woods is able to still perform well with an erratic driver because he hits almost as many greens out of the thick rough as most guys do from pristine fairways.

However, the new Augusta National is now set up differently than most majors in that the fairways are lined with massive pine trees, many more of which have been added in recent years, and many of the greens are guarded with lakes and creeks.

This means that if Woods is erratic off of the tee, although he may land in a lie that he is normally able to get out of with no problem, he will more than likely be blocked by trees, or facing a scenario where the slightest mishit will land him in a lake or creek.

This essentially equalizes that massive advantage Woods normally enjoys as far as getting the ball out of the rough and onto the green in situations where other players are simply not able to do so.

Like just about everyone else, Woods’ scoring average at the Masters has increased in recent years along with the changes to Augusta National.

Between 1997 and 2005, Woods’ scoring average at Augusta National was 70.33.  Over the past three years Woods’ scoring average has increased to 71.5, still not bad for a major championship but, shall we say, a lot more human.

In Woods’ first two stroke-play events since returning to the PGA Tour, he has once again shown an inability to display a consistent level of accuracy off the tee, despite a swing that now appears a lot more controlled than it did prior to his reconstructive ACL surgery.

Woods’ 2009 driving accuracy percentage of 60.71 currently ranks 103rd on the PGA Tour.

At the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which Woods won less than two weeks ago, he did not hit more than 50 percent of fairways or greens in regulation during his first two rounds.

Woods relied heavily on an excellent short game just to stay in the tournament and then finally turned on all aspects of his game on Sunday.

However, hitting just 50 percent of fairways and greens in regulation at Augusta National this week will land Woods in a massive hole and will make winning the Masters virtually impossible.  No matter how many times he chips in or how many long par putts he manages to make, Augusta National is simply too difficult of a golf course to be very inaccurate off the tee and still hope to contend.

If Woods wants Trevor Immelman to help him into his fifth green jacket on Sunday evening, he and swing coach Hank Haney had better have made some adjustments that will allow Woods to find the fairway a lot more often than he has been.