Tiger Woods is not keeping a low profile at the U.S. Open. Rather than, say, use some Hilton points for his accommodations, he parked his $20 million yacht at the Hamptons in advance of this major.
So he is not just another face in the field for this major. Although Tiger hasn’t won a tournament in five years and a major since the 2008 U.S. Open, he regained some golfing relevance with four top-12 finishes this season.
He will still draw lots of attention and action. The oddsmakers at BetDSI created plenty of prop bets for him and also rated him among the favorites, behind only 2016 U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson, 2011 champion Rory McIlroy, 2015 winner Jordan Spieth, 2013 winner Justin Rose and Justin Thomas.
PERILS OF SHINNECOCK HILLS
Unfortunately, Tiger’s current game isn’t a good fit at Shinnecock Hills, the site of the 118th Open. While he is showing good distance off the tee during his latest injury comeback, accuracy remains a problem — particularly with his driver.
And he will need that club often at Shinnecock, as he has discovered during a recent practice round there.
“It will be long, very long,” Woods told reporters. “But around the greens it’s very different. They have taken out more than 500 trees since the last time I played it and added about 500 yards, so it’s a very different golf course. Very open, wind blows a little more. I understand they’re trying to give us an opportunity to run the ball up, have more fall-offs, a lot of pitch and runs and all different shots around the greens. If it’s soft, it’s a moot point. If it’s hard, then it becomes quite a test.”
He is barely hitting 50 percent of his fairways. In the “strokes gained off the tee” metric, Tiger ranks 120th on the PGA Tour. His short game has been fine, but his ability to work out of the rough has not been stellar.
THE USGA FACTOR
Here is another problem for Tiger: The U.S. Open is notorious for its punitive pin placements and its aversion to low scores.
“I think the USGA thinks we’re better than we actually are, if that makes sense,” McIlroy told reporters at The Memorial. “I think they overthink it . . . “I don’t think it should be as much of an exact science to set up the golf course as it is. I mean, I get the fairways sort of firm, grow the rough, put the pins in some tough locations. But fair — and go let us play.”
Ah, but the USGA likes to see par scores and worse in its hallmark event. This favors an accurate driver like Dustin Johnson but makes the challenge even tougher for Tiger as he tries to straighten out his game.
“There’s no doubt about it, the U.S. Open is tough for him,” his former swing coach, Hank Haney, told ESPN.com. “You only have two par-5s, so it’s harder to make birdies. When that’s the case, it’s more about how many bogeys and double bogeys you make. You don’t win the U.S. Open because you make a ton of birdies. You can’t make double bogeys and you limit your bogeys.
“After a double bogey, you can’t just say, “I’ll make two birdies to make up for it.’ How many birdies are you going to make at a U.S. Open? At Augusta, if you 3-putt, you can eagle No. 8. You can eagle No. 13. You have chances to make up for a hiccup. He hits it one time in that hay and has to come out sideways and then misses a green or 3-putts and you have a double bogey. So his odds have dropped dramatically.”
