John:
I'm not sure Tiger had any more longer approaches at Lytham than he did at Hoylake, when he torched the course at -18, won the Open Championship, and famously pulled his driver all of one time. I clearly remember Tiger playing some holes at Hoylake 4-iron/4-iron. He's just not the same player he was back then, as Shivas points out (stealing, of course, from my many previous claims to that argument in threads past
). He played some really brilliant recovery shots -- that 5-iron from just off the green for a tap-in up-and-down was great, and he holed a bunker shot on 18 on Saturday. But he also played some really poor recovery shots. He hit some great putts and some incredibly poor ones (missing uphill 15-footers for birdie by a foot to the side of the hole on Sunday). His short-irons were occasionally on, but mostly off, in terms of distance control. He hit a lot of fairways, but also had some really bad misses off the tee.
He used to be fearless -- the most fearless golfer since Seve, and far more aggressive and fearless than Jack in his prime. Now he seems tentative. He's incredibly inconsistent. And, as Patrick correctly points out (in another stolen line from my points in previous Tiger threads
), he's not that feared anymore.
Sunday's outcome, from my perspective, could not have been filled with more irony. I remain convinced that Tiger's ascension in 1997 -- and his domination for the next decade -- caused many of his peers to wilt in his presence; they simply were intimidated by his talent and will to win golf tournaments. At the top of that list was Els, who had won a major pre-Tiger, won the major immediately following Tiger's breakout at Augusta in 1997, and then watched Tiger just stomp everyone in his way for the next 10 years. Els won one more major during Tiger's reign -- hardly what you'd expect of maybe the second-most talented player the game has seen in the past 20 years or so. Watching Els aggressively take on the back nine Sunday and come home in 32, with a birdie at the last (that was a vintage Tiger putt -- that thing was five feet past the hole if it doesn't go in), while Tiger bunted his way around Lytham, made for one of the better Opens of recent years.