There are an entire generation of PGA Tour players who must wonder just how many more titles they would have won had they not been around in the same era as Tiger Woods.
It is impossible to argue with anyone who believes Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time. Only Jack Nicklaus has won more major titles than the 49-year-old. Meanwhile, Woods is tied for the most PGA Tour victories ever alongside Sam Snead.
Woods was a master when he was out in front. He had already won 14 majors before he failed to convert a 54-hole lead in one of the sport’s biggest events for the first time.
Obviously, Woods could hit the ball seemingly like no one else. But he was also not afraid to play games with his playing partners.
The trick Tiger Woods used to play on his playing partners
Woods probably knew that he could greatly influence his rivals. Even when he found himself out of position, he made it appear that it was all a part of a masterplan.
Perhaps it was. Speaking on Grant Horvat’s YouTube channel, Jason Day suggested that Woods was known to hit what appeared to be the wrong club just to try and sow doubt in the mind of others.
He said: “I heard this a while ago, there’d be a sign on a par three where he’d put his hand on the head-cover, and it was to the point where he was like, ‘okay, Steve, let me be’. He would go in there, let’s just say for instance, 12 at Augusta, it could be an eight iron, but he could clip a little seven iron in there and make it look like, ‘man, why did he hit seven iron in there?’
“Because most guys go over and see what the other guy’s hitting. So they go, ‘okay, if he’s hitting seven iron’, they judge it. ‘Okay, I hit it a little bit further or a little bit shorter. I’ll hit an eight or I’ll hit a six’. For him to go in there and go, ‘I’m going to go take some off a seven’, hit it, that just throws everyone off. You go, ‘oh okay, I’ll hit seven too’, and go over the green.”
“Yeah, this guy, he was nuts. He was so good,” he added, when Horvat asked if he did it on purpose.
The driver issue Jason Day helped Tiger Woods with
Despite Woods’ brilliance on the course, it would appear that he could overlook some obvious solutions on the rare occasion that he was trying to figure something out within his game.
It is understandable. Woods has more ability than almost anyone who has ever played the game. But it turns out that he is not immune to the same problems that the everyday golfer experiences, as Day went on to explain.
“The funny thing about Tiger, one time he texted me about the TaylorMade woods. And I’m like, ‘how are you hitting them?’ And he’s like, ‘I keep skying it off the top of the driver head’. And I said, ‘well, just tee it down lower’,” he said.
“And then the next week, or two weeks later at the British Open, they’re shaving the tees down.”
So somewhere out there, perhaps, is a discarded TaylorMade driver with sky marks – courtesy of 15-time major champion Tiger Woods.
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