All Tiger Woods has to do to fix what afflicts his short game and rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of last week’s dreadful DFL -- if former coaches, PGA Tour colleagues, and every authority in the golf biz are to be believed -- is really pretty simple:
Does anybody really know how to fix what ails Tiger Woods?
Despite the advice aimed at Tiger Woods from all corners of the golf universe, we highly doubt that jumping naked off the Golden Gate Bridge is the answer to his short-game woes.


- Can Chris Como
- Beg Butch Harmon to take you back
- Keep your own counsel
- Put Steve Stricker on the payroll
- Hire a sports shrink
- Get more tournament reps
- Practice until your hands bleed
- Trust the process
- Simplify
- Go back to basics
- Drive your right knee forward
- Stand more upright
- Re-up with Hank Haney
- Forget you ever met Sean Foley
- Deploy a 10-minute adjustment
- Hunker down for the long haul
Pundits throughout the game have prescribed each of these simple remedies since Woods’ hideous wedge play last week earned him the worst single-round score in his career and an early exit from TPC Scottsdale. Each and every potion may be just what the swing doctor ordered for what ails Tiger and, taken individually, may make total sense.
@citizencage @cararobbo @golfingworldtv @skysportsgolf We have just the thing to get Tiger back in form: pic.twitter.com/VFWtxOqlyV
— Ray@golfswingshirt (@GolfSwingShirt) February 3, 2015 But the deafening cacophony of dos and don’ts emanating from the punditry reminds us of the former world No. 1 himself dissecting the swing in that classic “Golf’s Not Hard” Nike commercial from what seems now, in the wake of Tiger’s astonishing tumble from golf’s Mt. Olympus, like eons ago.
To Paul Azinger, it should be pretty simple for a player of Woods’ caliber.
“He seems to me like he has been over-engineered a little bit. He’s gone from artist to engineer and he’s taken the feel out of his game,” the 12-time PGA Tour winner said in an ESPN interview last week after Woods’ 82 at the Phoenix. “We’re talking about the most physically smart athlete, golfer that has ever lived, for sure.
“These chipping and pitching problems can be fixed in minutes. Not days, not hours, not weeks, but minutes,” Azinger said about Woods, whom he called “confused” rather than rusty in his 2015 tour debut. “Somebody like Tiger Woods should be able to correct all his issues in literally minutes.”
Haney, who coached Woods for six years until a less-than-amicable split in 2010, could not concur less with Azinger’s assessment.
“When you have the yips, you have issues,” Haney said on his show Saturday on Sirius/XM PGA Tour Radio. “This isn’t going away. This isn’t just a turn of the switch.”
Very long very serious @Neumann_gc:is this something like Hogan and his putting later in his career? 1step at a time sounds long and serious
— Hank Haney (@HankDHaney) January 31, 2015 Haney noted Woods’ preference for using an unlofted iron to bump and run the golf ball out of the gate at last week’s tournament.
“That told me he’s got a serious issue and he knows it,” said Haney, who told a caller it would be “a magic show” if Woods were to rebound this week at the Farmers Insurance Open. “This isn’t just going to go away.”
Never fun seeing, let alone reporting on, 2 dreaded topics in golf: shanks & yips. Sadly, #Tiger has the latter. Nerves not mechanics.
— Dottie Pepper (@DottieandBogey) January 30, 2015 Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee agreed.
“Tiger choosing to go with the putter, for obvious reasons,” said Chamblee as he watched Woods eschew a lob shot from the back of the par-5 third green. “Playing defense.”
Chamblee colleague and Woods intimate Notah Begay, who brokered the Woods-Como partnership and was clearly uncomfortable discussing the pros and cons of Woods’ new swing consultant, was forced to address the Big Cat in the room.
Quick Edit
“This is not up to PGA Tour player standards,” he said of Woods’ chunks and skulls around Scottsdale. “That’s something that we’re used to seeing on Wednesdays from our pro-am partners, not from Tiger Woods and PGA Tour players.”
While Begay urged his former Stanford teammate to “trust the process [and] work through this issue and figure out what the next steps are,” GC commentator Arron Oberholser called on Woods to dump the fourth swing instructor he’s had in his professional career and both go it alone and dial 1-800-BUTCH.
“He needs to get rid of Chris Como,” said the winner of the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. “I’ll say it: he needs to go out on his own.
“He needs to get on a range and work it out on his own, by himself and just get totally process- and routine-oriented,” said Oberholser, who seemed as baffled by what Woods needed as Tiger is these days by a short chip shot. “If he wants to go hat-in-hand to Butch, that’s fine. I don’t think Butch is going to take him back but I think he should try.”
While Oberholser tried to explain the obvious glitch in his reasoning, Chamblee compared Woods’ currently cramped, flat-footed approach to that of 2005 when he stood more upright with hands extended, and found it wanting. He also observed that ongoing problems with his long game had “crept into his short game.”
Closer camera angel and position. Note right foot 97. Shoulders open 97. Right arm is above left 97. Hips cleared 97 pic.twitter.com/IQRmny2GLS
— brandel chamblee (@chambleebrandel) January 30, 2015 As clip after clip of Woods’ mishits scrolled by, Chamblee said one word encapsulated what he was seeing.
“Incomprehensible,” he said. “It is incomprehensible to see a golfer who had reached so high to fall so low with his golf game ... You cannot play out here on the PGA Tour, you can’t keep your card with the chipping yips.”
A bizarre occurrence, Tiger Woods asking advice of Billy Horschel regarding chipping. Unbelievable. No offense BH. pic.twitter.com/gwEScQLGrU
— Alex Miceli (@alexmiceli) February 4, 2015 Begay had heard just about enough and suggested that everybody just R-E-L-A-X.
“For someone that has achieved all the things that he has achieved throughout his career, maybe we give him a little bit of room to try and work this out,” said Begay in defense of his friend. “If we’re sitting in the same place in three or four months and he’s still shooting 82s then I’m going to sit there right in the bandwagon with the rest of you guys.”
Still, even Begay came up empty when it came to the magic elixir for Woods.
“I’ve got a whole laundry list of text messages from instructors and friends and people offering ways to help,” he said. “At the end of the day, I don’t have any answers.”
While Oberholser advised Woods to “do anything Butch asks” -- including jumping naked off the Golden Gate Bridge if that’s what it would take to get his game back -- he was also stumped.
“I don’t know what to say at this point, boys,” he said as the GC crew went all CSI: Scottsdale on Woods’ second-round struggles.
So got all that, Tiger? Just remember: “That’s all there is to it ... As long as you allow your weight to shift to the inside of your right foot, keep your club face square, and your left heel planted, and the ‘V’ between your thumb and forefinger pointed to your right shoulder...”












