Tiger Woods Must Improve Putting Stroke to Claim Fourth US Open

Tiger Woods may be fifth in strokes gained-putting on the PGA this year, but unless he improves his putting stroke, he will come up short at the 113th U.S. Open. 

Of course, if Woods' recent putting reflected his fifth standing (all stats according to PGATour.com) then this would be a ridiculous comment, but he hasn't been.

I'll talk about the current form of his putting, but first I need to add the context. 

Prior to March's WGC Cadillac Championship, Woods received putting tips from his friend and putting maestro Steve Stricker. 

Stricker noticed Woods hands were a little behind the ball as he addressed it, and that his grip was a little tight. Stricker added, via the Associated Press' Doug Ferguson: "Just tried to get him set up in a better position where he could feel like he could accelerate down through the line a little bit." 

It worked. Woods won that event and then two of his next three.

At the Cadillac, he finished with a strokes gained-putting mark of 1.981. His next tournament was the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He finished that event with an insane 2.798 mark in strokes gained-putting. 

These are easily his two best outings of the year in terms of putting, and it lead to him leading the tour in strokes gained-putting. However, he's began to fade with the flat iron. 

Following his win at Bay Hill, Tiger was off to Agusta. Strokes gained-putting is not tracked at the Masters, but Tiger was not drilling them like he had been. 

Following Agusta was Tiger's win at The Players Championship. The 14-time major champ was solid on the greens, but not nearly as spectacular as he had been. He finished at .445 in strokes gained-putting. Next up was the Memorial Tournament. 

Tiger has dominated this tournament over the years, but he completely forgot how to putt while there this year. He finished at -1.190 in strokes gained-putting and finished in 65th for the tournament. Both of those marks are season lows for Tiger. 

Woods has not played since the Memorial, and he should be working on his putting stroke. Saving strokes with good putting is going to be key on the short and tight track of Merion Golf Club. 

To win the U.S. Open, Woods doesn't need to putt at the insanely high level he was after Stricker's advice—especially considering he's posted his highest driving accuracy percentages of the year in each of his last two starts. 

However, he certainly can't throw away strokes on the green like he has been recently. Scoring opportunities at Merion will be too few and far between for that.