8 Burning Questions About Tiger Woods' 2015 PGA Tour Season
Tiger Woods' 2015 PGA Tour season can't be much worse than his 2014 season.
What will 2015 look like for the 79-time PGA Tour? Certainly we have more questions than answers.
First, a few lowlights of the former world No. 1's 2014 season:
- Woods began the year at the Farmers Insurance Open, a tournament he has won seven times. He missed the secondary cut.
- He recorded just one top-25 finish in seven starts and withdrew twice with back issues.
- Woods had a microdiscectomy at the end of March and didn't return to competitive golf until the end of June at the Quicken Loans National where he missed the cut.
- He finished 69th at The Open Championship and missed the cut at the PGA Championship before calling it quits for the year.
- Woods' seven starts marked his lowest number of tournaments since his injury-shortened 2008 season, when he teed it up six times.
Thus, there's nowhere to go but up for the 14-time major winner. How will Tiger fare in 2015? We'll take a look at that and other burning questions after the jump.
How Many Years Does Tiger Have Left?
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This question comes first because it frames all the others and will be asked every year for the rest of Woods' career: How many years does he have left?
Woods turns 39 on December 30, and he's closing in on his 20th season on the PGA Tour. Jack Nicklaus won his 18th major at the age of 46. If Woods follows the same trajectory, he has only five or six years of potential major-winning golf left.
Further, his physical fitness, which seemed to be an asset in the early 2000s, looks to be contributing little positivity to his longevity, with many raising the question of "overtraining."
Will Tiger's Back Issues Be Behind Him?
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As Hank Gola of the New York Daily News wrote after Woods' withdrawal from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August, "Most spinal specialists concurred that it usually takes between three or four months to rehab from a microdiscectomy. Woods came back at the low end."
And while it seems Woods did not reinjure the surgically repaired portion of his back, his early return from the surgery did seem to contribute to the dislodged sacrum that plagued him at the WGC-Bridgestone and the PGA Championship, as the muscles in the area were too weak from disuse to keep everything in place.
Woods will have had nearly six months of rest and rebuilding the strength in his back by the time he tees it up again at his World Challenge event. Thus, the back issues should be behind him. Whether they will be or whether another ailment will have emerged to handicap the increasingly fragile Woods remains to be seen.
Who Will Tiger Woods' Coach Be?
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After Woods' departure from coach Sean Foley, with whom he had worked since 2009, speculation erupted as to who the next overseer of Woods' range work will be.
In fact, as Golf Channel reported, oddsmakers have handicapped the field of potential coaches:
- Butch Harmon: 7-4
- Chuck Cook: 9-2
- David Leadbetter: 8-1
- Hank Haney: 10-1
- Jim McLean: 10-1
- Todd Anderson: 12-1
- Mike Adams: 12-1
- Peter Kostis: 12-1
- Claude Harmon III: 12-1
- Rick Smith: 12-1
- Mike Bender: 14-1
Who will Woods' next coach be? Will he choose to go it alone? Place your bets!
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How Many Majors Will Tiger Woods Win This Year?
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Since Woods won his first major at the 1997 Masters, the question entering every golf season has been "How many majors will Tiger Woods win this year?"
As you're surely tired of hearing, Woods hasn't won a major since the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Last year, Woods sat out the Masters and the U.S. Open after back surgery and missed the cut at the PGA Championship. He didn't threaten at his only major of the year, The Open Championship.
In other words, Woods had his worst year in the majors ever. Thus, the former world No. 1's prospects for major glory entering the upcoming golf season are as dim as they have been in nearly 20 years.
If Woods Plays Poorly or Is Hurt, What Will the Talking Heads Say?
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Our babbling friends on television seemed to tire of Woods' narrative of "the process" in the past few years.
Most notably, the likes of Brandel Chamblee and Paul Azinger lost patience with the Woodsian rhetoric and the golfer's failure to win a major under Foley.
If Woods fails to win a major in 2015 and has further health set-backs, one has to imagine his critics will be eager to write the golfer off as a has-been and pronounce his pursuit of Nicklaus' 18 majors over.
Will Tiger Have a Better 2015 Than Rory?
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With Rory McIlroy's recent comments about Woods and Phil Mickelson heading into the closing holes of their respective careers, you know the uber-competitive Woods wants to stick it to the 25-year-old Ulsterman in the upcoming golf season.
Woods' legendary competitive streak will be on full display this season if his body allows it. With the emergence of a legitimate rival and a real dominant threat to Woodsian supremacy in McIlroy, Tiger will be uniquely motivated this season.
What Will Tiger's Swing Speed, Driving Distance Be?
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After swinging the club at an average of around 125 mph early in his career, Tiger Woods has seen significant declines in his club head speed and driving distance as his career has worn on and his body has worn down.
As recently as 2012, Woods was swinging his driver an average of 120 mph. In 2013, he lost more than two mph of speed. This past season, Woods swung the club an average of just 115 mph. One can assume the significant declines during the 2013-2014 season had more to do with injury than aging.
Remembering that one mph of club head speed translates translates to 1.5 yards of distance, Woods will be keen to reverse the trend once his back is healthy. And with all his talk about getting back in the gym and working on his "explosiveness," it's clear that increasing his club head speed (and thus his distances) is a priority for Woods heading into 2015.
How Many Times Will Tiger Woods Win in 2015?
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Not surprisingly, in a season marred by injury, Tiger Woods didn't lift a trophy.
After winning five times in 2013, Woods seemed to be on the comeback trail before being sidelined by back issues and a lengthy recovery from back surgery.
Woods won three times in 2012 and was winless in 2010 and 2011. Thus, he's won just eight times since 2009. To put that in perspective, Woods has won eight times in a season twice in his career.
The Stanford alum's win totals have been in a free fall in recent years. Will he reverse the trend in 2015? Will he even be in the physical condition to get the 16 to 18 starts he traditionally averages?
The golf world eagerly waits for the answer to these questions.
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