Tiger Woods needs Rory McIlroy’s putting coach Dave Stockton

Tiger Woods’ golf swing has been analyzed, psychoanalyzed, criticized, and generally found wanting since he hooked up in 2010 with Sean Foley. Indeed, with cracks in the foundation of Woods’ game turning into gaping crevices, Foley has come under fire from all corners as his famous student struggles to regain a semblance of his 14-time major championship-winning form.

There’s little question that Woods’ ball-striking -- especially what Brandel Chamblee termed the “strong grip and a wipe slice” of Tiger’s woebegone driver motion -- is not up to par, as his fourth-from-last finish at last week’s British Open would indicate. The golfer himself, playing in just his second competition since undergoing back surgery in March, noted his error-prone results.

“I just made too many mistakes,” he told reporters last Sunday at Royal Liverpool after signing for a 6-over 294, his worst-ever finish in a major after making a cut. “I had two triples, two doubles, two or or three three-putts this week. Just way too many mistakes.”

About those three-putts. While many of the harsh reviews of Woods’ efforts focus on his multiple swing overhauls, Tiger’s increasingly yippy results with the blade have not escaped scrutiny. It would certainly appear that the former world No. 1, who publicly bemoaned his efforts on the greens at Hoylake, could use more work with the short stick than the occasional tuneup session with old friend Steve Stricker.

Would it not make sense for Woods to ask Open Championship winner Rory McIlroy for the phone number of his personal flat-stick guru, Dave Stockton?

McIlroy reportedly met last with the renowned putting maestro before the Masters in April and the two communicate only sporadically. Rory’s reliance on the two-word mantra he chanted to himself to maintain his week-long concentration, however, was pure Stockton.

“I didn’t know what two words he was going to say,” Stockton, who interrupted a family vacation to watch on TV on Sunday as his stellar student put the finishing touches on a two-shot, wire-to-wire win at Hoylake, told Brian Wacker. “When I heard him mention ‘process’ and ‘spot’ I just about fell off my chair. Spot putting is basically what we teach.”

During the traditional post-grand slam win media rounds, McIlroy expanded on the importance of the two words.

“Staying in the process, make good mental decisions, make good swings, stay in the moment, stay focused, execute your game plan, stick to your game plan,” McIlroy said on ESPN’s Mike & Mike (via Wacker). “There’s quite a lot of mental strength that goes on to not allow yourself to think about winning, or the result, or what it would mean for your career ... You have to refrain from thinking about it because any sort of thought can derail you; a loss of concentration, a loss of focus, that can be two shots gone right there ... These two trigger words for me definitely helped.”

Golf at his level was “all mental,” McIlroy added. “The physical capabilities are there. A lot of guys on tour can go out and shoot a 65 or 66 on any given day, but it’s being able to do it when you need to and do it when the pressure is on, and I feel like I’m getting better at that.”

Woods, in his heyday, seemed impervious to internal or external distractions as he nailed short-, mid-, and long-range putts from everywhere and anywhere. But that was then and this is now.

For sure, putts have not been falling on command for Tiger at the majors for some time, including shaggy attempts at last year’s Open Championship at Muirfield, where he complained (as is his habit) about the sluggish putting surfaces.

“I’m right there and I hit a ton of good shots this week,” Woods said after carding a final-round 3-over 74 in Sunday’s final round 12 months ago. “The only thing that I would look back on this week is I just never got the speed [of the greens] after the first day, because it progressively got slower.”

That Tiger could not will himself to overcome the pace of the putting surfaces was in evidence all week. Robert Lusetich noted, though, that the outcome on No. 8 during Sunday’s finale at Muirfield epitomized the yips that are now as much a part of Woods’ game as his lethal stinger once was.

After Woods stuffed an approach shot to some six feet, he got an excellent read from playing partner Adam Scott, who drained a 50-footer on the same line that faced Tiger. Instead of confidently jamming his ball into the back of the cup, as his younger, Tiger Slam self would have executed, Woods took an anemic pass at the ball, which did not drop.

Woods, at least before he became a father of two and injured his back, was a range rat, although putting practice has reportedly never been high on his to-do list. But for intermittent tips from Stricker -- whose unofficial instruction helped him win at Doral last year -- and former Stanford teammate, Notah Begay, Woods never replaced his only known putting coach, his father Earl Woods, who died in 2006.

With the final major of his lost 2014 season starting in two weeks, it would seem to be past time for Woods, who exited his most recent failed attempt to end his six-year major title drought conceding there were “a lot of things I need to work on,” could use a sip of the Stockton Kool-Aid his heir apparent has been chugging.