CHARLOTTE – Tiger Woods is having trust issues. No matter what he’s done, Woods remained detached from the putting surfaces at Quail Hollow Club in…
CHARLOTTE – Tiger Woods is having trust issues.
No matter what he’s done, Woods remained detached from the putting surfaces at Quail Hollow Club in Friday’s second round of the Wells Fargo Championship, powerless, for now, to match his feels with the shortest club in the bag with the makeup of the greens.
A 30-minute session on the practice green on Tuesday didn’t help as he tried to match his stroke to the speed, or lack thereof, of the greens. Fifteen extra minutes each of the next two days did nothing for the disconnect.
The two remained at odds with each other in the second round and the separation is costing Woods a chance to add to his 79 PGA Tour titles in his first action since the Masters three weeks ago. Woods went straight to the practice putting green for 40 minutes after the round to try and figure out how to putt on firm but slow greens.
“I need to trust what I keep telling myself, but my feels are telling me one thing,” Woods said after signing for a 2-over-par 73 that left him frustrated but kept him inside the cutline at 2 over through 36 holes. “I need to fix it and try to get a little more hit in my stroke. I’ve always putted faster greens well, and slower greens I’ve always kind of struggled. I’ve had ample time to make the adjustment, I just haven’t.
“I’m struggling with putting that much hit in my stroke to hit it that much harder. I’ve just got to be able to do it.”
Tiger Tracker: Clutch putt finally drops on Woods’ final hole
This is the best putter of his generation we’re talking about here, so in many ways it’s jarring to hear he’s puzzled with the greens even after four days of work on them. Following Thursday’s first round, he didn’t sound worried about his putting woes, for he was confident he would find a cure because he has throughout his career.
After the second round, however, he sounded a tad more distressed. Which is understandable seeing as he has taken 64 putts through 36 holes. And through 17 holes in the second round, the longest putt he made was six feet. He missed four putts inside 10 feet in his first nine holes. On his 15th hole, his 19-footer for birdie wasn’t even close to going in. Then his next putt from five feet to save par didn’t go in.
But Woods isn’t ready to page Steve Stricker or call Brad Faxon just yet, the two among the best putters in the world and a couple of putting gurus who can fix most anyone’s stroke. Woods also won’t blame his work with the new irons he put in his bag this week, for he did not neglect his short game while fine-tuning his new irons.
What he does need to do, however, is empty his memory bank as it pertains to Quail Hollow, where he won this tournament in 2007 and played five other times. He hasn’t been here since 2012 and the course has been redesigned and the greens resurfaced, but Woods keeps thinking back to putts of yesteryear.
“I’ve hit it good enough to be right up next to that lead,” Woods said. “If I just putt normal, I’m right there. I’m hitting it fine and I just need to make some putts. Hopefully, this weekend I’ll hit it the way I’ve been hitting it and get a hot putter on the weekend. You never know.”
At least he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. On his final hole in the second round, he had 13 feet for birdie. At the time, he figured he had to make it to make the cut. Boom, he made it – and then mocked himself.
“I’m on a hot streak right now, I made the last putt,” Woods said when he met with reporters. It was one of the few times he laughed all day.
