With everyone from six-time majors champ Nick Faldo to former swing coach Hank Haney now questioning his moxie as it relates to winning majors, Tiger Woods insists all he needs is a break or two to put his majors drought firmly behind him.
It’s been 16 tries now since Woods last won a major, and he knows that until he garners No. 15 all the questions and scrutiny will never settle. He just hopes it comes with a little more understanding.
“I feel very good about my game,” Woods told USA Today Sports as he prepped for this week’s British Open at Muirfield Golf Club. "I've had a pretty good year so far; won four times. Even though I haven't won a major championship in five years, I've been there in a bunch of them where I've had chances.”
Like at this year’s Masters, when Woods played the 15th fairway of Augusta National during the second round just a shot behind the leaders. From 87 yards out, he struck the flagstick on the par 5, the ball heartlessly caroming back into the pond protecting the front of the green. He subsequently was assessed a two-stroke penalty for an improper drop on the hole and finished in a tie for fourth.
“It's just a shot here and there. It's making a key up-and-down here or getting a good bounce here, capitalizing on an opportunity," said the world’s top-ranked player. "It's not much. It could happen on the first day, it could happen on the last day. But it's turning that tide and getting the momentum at the right time or capitalizing on our opportunity. That's what you have to do to win major championships."
Following the U.S. Open, Haney took to Twitter to blast his former student as ill-prepared. “Tiger doesn’t have as good a chance of winning on courses that he doesn’t know well,” Haney told FoxSports.com, adding that Woods should spend more direct time practicing at such sites “He is a great greens rememberer, but if he hasn't played the course, his greens reading won't be nearly as good.”
Faldo, now a CBS analyst, was even more unforgiving. "Tiger is in a different mode where he's winning regular tournaments, but he gets to the majors and something happens,” he told USA Today. “As I call it, the self-belief you have to have, maybe there's a little dent in there."
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