Capelle On Golf

Tiger Woods hadn’t played a competitive round in eight months. Still, he came into the WGC Match Play with the number one ranking , which meant that he would face Aussie Brendan Jones in his opening match.

Talk about the luck of the draw. Jones, earned only 4.89 of his 88.71 ranking points on the PGA Tour while the vast majority came on the Japanese Tour which is, at best, AA or AAA golf. In his four appearances on the PGA Tour last year he finished 33t, 40t, 36t, MC. (The first three were small field events and the last was the PGA.)

Jones, who had not played in over two months, showed even more rust than Woods as he hacked his way to a two over performance through 13, enabling Tiger to build a 4 up lead.

As I watched the round unfold it occurred to me that Tiger chose Dove Mountain because the fairways are super wide as you’d expect at a resort course and the greens are huge. These are two characteristics of the places he wins at.

Tiger’s body language suggested on several occasions that he’d hit an errant tee shot. But his punishment was anything but severe as the ball would end up on the far side of the fairway or in the first cut of rough. And though the greens were huge and he was hitting from good lies, he still missed six of 16, including three of the four par threes. So, he was far from his A game, but Dove Mountain accommodated his sporadic play.

Tiger’s putting is routinely the best part of his game, and Wednesday was no exception. On the first hole he coolly ran home a six footer for birdie to take a one up lead. On the eighth he canned a nine footer to retain his two up lead. On 13 he rolled home a 20 footer from off the back edge to go four up. And on 16 he knocked in a three and a half foot par saver at warp speed to close out Jones 4&2.

As for Tiger’s famous temper and over-the-top celebrations, there was little evidence of either. On the 13th tee he slammed his driver after hitting it way right (though the ball was on the right edge of the super wide fairway). I never heard one cuss word though some of his swings normally would have earned one. And when he rolled in that statement making eagle putt on 13, he raised his putter to the sky like Jack Nicklaus used to do instead of making that ugly faced fist pump he’s made so famous.

So, has time at home with the family spawned a kinder and gentler Tiger, or will the ferocious beast rear his head again in the day or days to follow? That will be an interesting story to follow as Tiger faces golf’s frustrations on the comeback trail.