Given the sad news concerning his mother’s passing last week, it was not at all surprising to see Tiger Woods decide to withdraw from playing in the Genesis Invitational with the 15-time major champion not feeling that he is in the right place to tee it up this week.
There was real excitement ahead of Tiger Woods‘ potential return to the PGA Tour. Woods had whet the appetite with an impressive showing at the PNC Championship last year, while it was encouraging how comfortable he looked during his second appearance at TGL.
Unfortunately, events away from the course make golf all but irrelevant right now. Woods announced last week that his mother, Kultida had passed away.
Woods was set to be in the field for the Genesis Invitational – the tournament he hosts. However, he has now decided to withdraw from the event. So fans will have to wait a little longer just to get a better idea of where Woods’ game is really at ahead of the Masters in April.
The most underrated part of Tiger Woods’ golf game highlighted
Unfortunately, it is hard to see the 49-year-old returning to anything like his best with his long game. But perhaps one part of his game will allow him to remain competitive whenever he does tee it up in the future.
Speaking on Golf Today about his work on and around the greens, writer Jaime Diaz suggested that there is even more magic in Woods’ game than most realise.
“I think it is the most underrated part of it because as a young player, and we are talking really young, five, six or seven years old, he was winning tournaments but playing against 10 or 11 year olds. He is hitting it way shorter than they are, so where did he try and make that up? Obviously he could hit the ball solidly but not that far, but he could outperform them with his short game and he became a short game specialist when he was eight years old. That is where he spent his time, on the putting green and chipping green,” he said.
“He would make a point spending most of his time there, because he had fun with it. He liked creating shots but he also knew that was the difference, he was getting the power but he knew a lot of the guys who were playing didn’t have great short games. He had both and as he extended that into his pro career he just wanted to have everything. If there was a weakness he just wanted to work on it and hopefully make it a strength. I think those special shots and the special feel for the club and club head awareness, as they say on the PGA Tour, he is exceptional with that and I think he knows he has genius level in his hands.”
Why Woods’ short game should hopefully be as sharp as ever when he does return
Woods’ body has taken such punishment over the years. Most people would have long retired had they dealt with the problems he has had.
But given how dedicated Woods is to the game, you can imagine that he would have been putting the work in on his short game and putting during all that time that he was unable to fully swing a golf club due to his back issues.
That would suggest that he is still likely to be in a good place around the greens whenever he does return to competition.
Of course, having now withdrawn from the Genesis, it seems entirely possible that his return is likely to come at a certain course which happened to provide the stage for his most recent victory back in 2019.
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