Tiger Woods on the Decline? Ridiculous!

Amazingly enough, there are many out there who actually believe that Tiger Woods is in the midst of some kind of ultimate decline based solely on his performance over the past few months.

Woods is struggling, there is no doubt about that.

His tee shots are all over the map and for the third consecutive time, Woods has been unable to mount any kind of Sunday afternoon charge despite being well within striking distance of the leaders.

He is completely missing greens with basic approach shots. He has made only a fraction of those 10-foot putts we have become so accustomed to seeing Woods make—with the same ease and consistency as most other PGA Tour players sink three-inch tap-ins.   

That being said, let’s all take a deep breath, calm down a little bit, and come back to reality.

The irrational panic that’s spreading like wildfire over Woods’ struggles on the course seems to have grown to such proportions that it’s even taken the place of the swine flu as the latest absurd panic to sweep the nation.

Folks, in the five stroke-play events Woods has played in, he’s finished in the top 10 four times and won the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The fact that Woods has been able to post four top-10 finishes and a win while possessing a game that is nowhere near his best is a clear sign of just how dominant he can still be once he does regain his top form.

It’s human nature to eventually forget about the past and overlook all of those lessons that can be learned from history.

But, come on everyone. Woods has only been on the PGA Tour for 13 years. This is very recent history we are talking about here.

Has Woods ever failed to overcome a single obstacle in the game of golf?

Woods has gone through 10 majors without a win on two separate occasions during the course of his career.

At this very moment, Woods has won two of the last four majors he’s played in.

Think back to as early as 2004. 

Come on now, folks. I know that we are living in the information age where we are used to seeing 10,000 images a day and having breaking news constantly beamed out over the Internet and television networks. But we can think back to just five years ago, can’t we?

Between 2002 and 2004, Woods competed in 10 majors without a win.

Similar—no, exactly—the same as is happening right now, the rumblings began to circulate about how Woods was in the midst of an ultimate decline.

He changed his swing and lost his game.

The money had gone to his head and all of the time he was spending on off-the-course dealings had taken his focus away from golf.

He’s married now and other things are beginning to take priority over golf.

Hmmm, that sure panned out to be true back in 2004, didn’t it?

After the death of his father in 2006, Woods missed the cut in the US Open at Winged Foot.

Again, folks, this is just three years ago.  If you can’t remember back to 2004, surely your memory can stretch back to just three years ago, can’t it?

Following his poor showing at the 2006 US Open, according to many, the outlook was once again gloomy for Woods.

You couldn’t open the sports section of a newspaper, look on an Internet Web site or turn on the television without hearing someone confidently predicting that Woods would need a great deal of time to get over the death of his father and probably wouldn’t be a factor for the rest of the year.

Once again, that certainly panned out, didn’t it?

Well, it would have been true had Woods not gone on to win the British Open the following month and the PGA Championship just a few weeks after that.

Woods' first child, Sam, was born in early 2007.

As you might expect, many people had not learned a single thing from recent history and began predicting how Woods might not give golf the same attention that he once had.

The critics were right again, weren’t they?

Well, they would have been had Woods not gone on one of the most dominant stretches of his career between late 2007 and early 2008.

Then we come to the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines.  Unless you were spending some time on the Moon last June, you have to remember the 2008 US Open, don’t you?

There’s no way Woods could possibly win the US Open on one leg. That’s ludicrous, right?

Well, if you actually happened to be spending some time on the Moon last June, you can probably guess the outcome based solely on the gist of this article.

Yup, you got it. Woods won the 2008 US Open while playing on one leg.

Now, here we are again.

It’s 2009 and Woods has struggled since returning to the PGA Tour after reconstructive knee surgery and an eight-and-a-half-month layoff.

A significant surgery, eight-and-a-half months away from the game and a new swing that seems to be constructed in a way that will take the pressure off of his surgically repaired knee—that’s all irrelevant, right?

This is Tiger Woods we’re talking about. He’s supposed to win every single tournament he enters—no matter what, right?

Unless you have already forgotten about the brief history lesson on Woods’ career that you’ve read over the course of the last three-and-a-half minutes, I suggest that you go back and re-read it before jumping off that cliff once again and predicting that Woods will not overcome this latest setback.

Woods is nowhere near his top form and with each additional wayward shot he hits, the rest of the PGA Tour builds more and more confidence, which is certainly not a good thing for Woods.

It could take a month, six months, or even a year before Woods gets back to his top form.  But, to suggest that Woods is in some kind of downward spiral based solely on the last six events he’s played in is nothing short of irrational.

We constantly criticize politicians and business leaders for not learning from history and the mistakes of our past, which would suggest that at least on some level, we perceive ourselves to be smarter than them.

But, have we really learned anything from history when we prematurely predict that Woods is in the midst of an ultimate decline?

Obviously not.

I for one would rather use history as a guideline, or at the very least, wait a couple of years to start even exploring the possibility that this 33-year-old man—who is in the prime of his career and has dominated the PGA Tour for more than a decade—is on the decline.