It's Only One Round But...

Tiger's 4-beneath 66 at the Greenbriar on Thursday appears to have greatly surprised every body. That lots changed into evident while you listened to the analysts. Tiger's spherical wasn't shown live -- he become in the morning wave and completed lengthy before the broadcast window -- but we got to see a number of the photographs in replay because the analysts struggled to sound informed approximately what Tiger was doing.

Let's face it: Tiger maintains to marvel us all. And simplest Tiger himself appears to be surprised through our disbelief. Perhaps my preferred line from his media talks after the round -- aside from his assessment of that skulled sand shot that he meant to hit near the ball and succeeded, that is -- become whilst he said:

"I felt like I wasn't very some distance away. I recognize humans suppose I'm loopy for pronouncing that, but I simply felt like I wasn't that some distance. I simply needed to make a couple little tweaks, and I felt like I pulled that off."

While the analysts tried to explain the possible reasons why Tiger played so well, I was surprised that no one mentioned the fact that he has NEVER played well at the White Course. Since he's never played well there, he probably had no expectations -- as opposed to, say, Torrey Pines where he has pretty much owned the course over the years.

I've written before about players like Tiger and Phil saying they "aren't far off" when we see them spraying the ball everywhere. But to borrow from yesterday's post about the stages of a golfer, players like Tiger are consciously competent even when they appear to have lost control of their swings. They generally know that THIS is the problem, and they have some idea about how to fix THIS, and it may take them a while to get THIS back in line but there's no question that THIS is what they need to fix. It gives them a confidence that the rest of us lack.

I do not know how Tiger will fare these days. He may war again because progress is hardly ever consistent; it is always a be counted of usaand downs. But he is been doing properly on the variety for a while -- the media has showed that -- and that they've been seeing the identical things on the course these days, as they did this week at some point of the pro-am. It needed to start showing up during the reliable rounds in the end.

For me, the vital element is that when it showed up this time, it gave him the lowest spherical he is had in two years. That form of aspect would not happen unless you are doing something proper. I'm in hopes that we are going to be seeing more of that "something proper" this week. And we'll all get to observe it if it takes place on account that he is in the afternoon wave.

But I think it's time we confronted facts:

1. Tiger really does seem to know what he's doing.
2. And he still has the ability to do things that none of us can wrap our minds around.

That in and of itself should make today very interesting.

The quote came from this page at PGATOUR.Com.