Man on a mission

After a stunning start to ‘08, what next for Tiger?

Turns out Butch Harmon was wrong after all. Far from being in denial about the state of his game back in 2004, as suggested by his ex-coach between mouthfuls of sour grapes, it seems Tiger Woods was actually in control of it.

Consequently, his assertion that winning an elusive and unprecedented “Major Grand Slam’ in 2008 is “entirely within reason” attracted little opposition, even from the most cynical of pot-stirrers.

So let’s cut right to the chase: Tiger Woods is in the form of his life. Four wins from his first five starts this season, allied to three straight wins at the end of last year, are proof enough of that.

Since finishing in a share of 12th in The Open last July – a calamity by his standards, a triumph by anyone else’s – he has won nine times, tied for second once and tied-fifth on another occasion. 

Also since Carnoustie, Tiger has played 40 competitive stroke-play rounds, 34 of them in the 60s. His worst score since his second round 74 in The Open is 73, recorded in the third round of the Dubai Desert Classic, and he is a combined 111-under-par for the seven stroke-play events he has played in since he left the Claret Jug behind in Angus.

On the PGA Tour already this year, he has banked $3,615,000 – only he and eight others on the Tour won more than that in the whole of 2007 – and he has amassed a whopping 14,775 FedEx Cup points. To put that in perspective, his closest challenger Phil Mickelson has just 8,838, whilst third-placed Vijay Singh and fourth-placed K.J. Choi have 14,996 between them.

It’s a similar looking story on the Official World Golf Ranking where Tiger’s points average – 21.87 – is more than double that of his closest challenger Mickelson, and more than the combined total of world No.3 Ernie Els, No.4 Steve Stricker and No.5 Jim Furyk.

Statisticians on the PGA Tour have been working overtime trying to keep up with his latest accomplishments. For example, did you know that in just 12 rounds in the States this year, Tiger has racked up 58 birdies? That’s almost five per round or, to look at it another way, a birdie every 3.6 holes.

His scoring average is 67.67, better than anyone else out there just now – Luke Donald is his nearest challenger on 69.03 – and he has the most greens in regulation, too, 74.54% of them to be precise. K.J. Choi is next on 72.73%.

The scary thing about all of this – certainly from a PGA Tour professional’s perspective – is that there is still a lot of room for improvement. Tiger’s much-vaunted driving woes persist in spite of his prolificacy, as evidenced by the fact that he occupies 167th place on the PGA Tour’s driving accuracy chart, hitting only 55.95% of 168 fairways this year so far.

Moreover, in spite of what you might think, he doesn’t really hit the ball that far off the tee, at least not in comparison to the other players on the Tour. His average drive distance this year is ...