Golf blog: Tiger Woods Still Lacking Major Mentality

Golf Blog

79 PGA Tour victories and 14 major titles. Tiger Woods will go down in history as one of the all-time greats and rightly so.

His imagination, persistently precise execution and commanding presence have allowed him to become a playing legend.

Watching him on Friday during the 2nd round of the WGC Bridgestone Invitational was exhilarating - his irons were pinpoint but it was the putter that just kept stealing shots from par.

So, whilst I am aware how good that round was, there are a lot of things that are still not right for me.

Tiger has amassed 5 wins this season, which is an incredible feat but they are all tournaments he has played well at before and publicly declared a love for the individual courses.

As he stated to David Feherty on the green straight after his win on Sunday ‘this course suits my eye.'

On the tracks where he lacks game time and experience, he has struggled.

Although, when I say struggled, I do mean a Tiger struggle - not a miss 5 cuts and bend your club struggle, but a have one bad round struggle.

That does say something for me, he is still on the comeback but until he wins a major/big tournament on an unknown course, then I cannot say he is 100% back to his dominant best.

He was in prime position at the Masters and Open but fell to the wayside over the weekend on both occasions.

His driving was woeful at times and with Jack Nicklaus' record playing on his mind, he seemed to be trying too hard.

Whilst his accuracy off the tee was better at Firestone (T11 for the week), there were still times he found the rough but then hit a magical shot back onto the green.

And with the cabbage still growing at Oak Hill, I cannot see him winning his 15th title come Sunday.

Graeme McDowell showed the world how long the rough is during a practice round a few weeks ago and if it's as long as his torso, then Tiger will really struggle.

It seems so obvious that he will never forgive himself if he doesn't reach that magical number 18 and having seemed like it would be done at a canter for most of his career, it would be considered a failure.

Lewis Pacelli writes for Down the 18th "Golf Betting and Opinions from a young perspective"