Philippines Golf Academy

The ascendance of Rory McIlroy at the 2011 U.S. Open golf championships was the best thing that’s happened to Tiger Woods.

Tiger had hardly been out of the headlines since the now infamous Tiger-gate just outside his house at Isleworth, Florida. After all the girls he fooled around with surfaced, checking himself into rehab for sex addiction, his divorce from his lovely wife Elin, leaving his 3rd swing coach Hank Haney and taking up with heretofore unknown Sean Foley then injuring his left knee (again!) and pulling out of the Players’ Championship and subsequently missing the U.S. Open; Tiger has always been top of mid when golf is discussed anywhere in the world.

In fact in the lead-up to the U.S. Open, the talk centered on the near-great one; how it wasn’t going to be much of an Open without him and how the also-rans would be scrambling to take advantage of his absence. But we all now know that this was not the case.

Congressional was the coming out party of Rory McIlroy; who on route to his maiden major victory almost completely re-wrote the record book with the most strokes under par, the quickest to get to double digits under par, yada yada yada. The only record that Tiger still holds at the biggest golf championship on American soil is the greatest margin of victory (15-strokes over Ernie Els at Pebble Beach).

Still all in all, Tiger can’t be too displeased. After all, most of the pressure is off him and seems to have shifted to our boy Rory; about how he’s the games next superstar, about how gracious he was after his implosion at the Masters, about how great a golfer he’s poised to become. Heck they even dug up images of him chipping into his mum’s washing machine when he was a wee lad of 9.

This is the first chance that Tiger’s had to keep to himself and heal. Heal his injured knee and his wounded psyche. I don’t think it was just the personal stuff that put him in a hole, either. His game suffered from the layoff. Then he took a lot of flack by dumping Haney and taking up with Foley. Then he injured his knee again. I thought the swing changes with Haney were supposed to prevent that from happening again?

I must admit that I’m one of his biggest critics here. The victim of an ill-advised swing change myself, I’m vehemently against changing what’s gotten you to where you are. But hey! I’m just a hack. He’s Tiger Woods. But there have been historical precedents that are against him. Try Ian Baker-Finch, Chip Beck and yes, even the great Severiano Ballesteros. Each was a victim of a swing change at the peak of their careers. Baker-Finch and Beck quit the game is disgust. Seve soldiered on but was never to enjoy the success he did before the change. But hey! He’s Tiger Woods.

On Tee’d Off, my weekly radio show with Nick Tuason on DZRJ 810 AM, Nick offered that he didn’t believe that Tiger had injured his knee again. He was of the opinion that Tiger had faked it because he was so disgusted with how the swing change was going. I may not have agreed with his reasoning but I couldn’t help but agree that Tiger had gone down the wrong road by taking up with Foley. The swing couldn’t be more different than his swing that won him all those majors and I can’t see how it can take him past Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors in his career.

Tiger still might get there, but his injury is the fly in the ointment. Tiger’s greatest asset has always been his mindset and maybe, just maybe it might be enough to overcome that ugly swing and win him a few more majors. But you know what they say; the mind might be willing but the body might not be able to take it (OK so I said that). Point here is that his knee might not be able to take the stress that it needs to to get him to his ultimate goal. Will it? Can he? Jury’s still out on that. We don’t have access to his medical records and Tiger will never admit that he can’t do anything so we’ll just have to wait and see.

If anyone can beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of most majors won in a career, my money’s on Yani Tseng.

The unassuming 22-year old from Taiwan already has four majors in her pocket and is poised to become the most dominant player on the women’s tour, if she isn’t already. With the retirement of Lorena Ochoa, I don’t think there’s anyone with the physical gifts or the sheer game that Yani possesses to keep here from her goals. If she has the motivation, I see little that can stand in her way at the moment. I guess looking at all those empty trophy cases at home (she bought Annika Sorenstam’s old house) is giving her the urge to fill them. I don’t think anyone can stop her.

Read the whole story on:http://pinoygolfer.com

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