Brandel Chamblee doubts Tiger Woods’ ‘catastrophically bad’ short game is ready for Augusta

If Tiger Woods plays the Masters next week — and a start at Augusta by the 14-time major champion seems more probable by the day — he will likely do so with a “catastrophically bad” short game that can’t pass the toughest test in golf, according to Brandel Chamblee.

Woods, who either played 18 holes at Augusta on Tuesday or pulled the mother of all April Fools’ Eve pranks on the golf world, appears inclined to return from his self-imposed hiatus to the friendly confines of a track he has mastered four times. The problem is that he shrugged into his last green jacket in 2005 and much has transpired since then.

Of most immediate concern is a ragged short game that resulted in a missed cut in Phoenix, an early withdrawal at Torrey Pines, and a break of indeterminate length with what many observers have called the chipping yips. Should he decide that his sticks are once again tournament-ready, Tiger will make his latest comeback on a course he knows better than most but that also features tight lies and the most treacherous green areas in the sport.

Chamblee, along with Chris DiMarco, who was up close and personal to Tiger’s “Oh my goodness!” chip shot a decade ago, wondered Tuesday if Woods were ready to go public with a wedge game that forced him into seclusion just two months ago.

It was unfathomable to Chamblee that Woods — who sparked a media and Twitter frenzy when his plane showed up on the runway at the Augusta airport on Tuesday— could have figured out what ailed his wedges in the few weeks he has gone missing from competition.

“Given what we’ve seen, it’s unimaginable to me that in this short period of time, he would have been able to come to any sort of manageable level of short game,” the Golf Channel analyst said during a teleconference. “I read where people said it wasn’t the ‘yips.’

“You can call it whatever you want, but it’s catastrophically bad, what we saw,” Chamblee added. “To get past that [Woods will have to play ] on the most difficult place in the world to hit … pitch shots.”

DiMarco was a bit more optimistic about Tiger’s chances at Augusta, but said his days as a PGA Tour golfer were numbered if his short-game struggles continued.

“If he does play Augusta, this is a make‐and‐break week for him,” said DiMarco, who lost to Woods in a playoff at the Masters in 2005.

“Now you’re going to all these comfortable places that he’s used to, and if he goes out and stinks it up — I never thought I’d ever say it, because I thought when I played with him he had the greatest mind ever and he was the strongest mind I’ve ever seen — but it’s getting mental,” said DiMarco. “If it doesn’t get fixed, I don’t know if he can overcome it.”

With his game under even greater scrutiny than the usual microscopic nit-picking that accompanies his every shot, DiMarco believes Woods psyche cannot withstand any more public mortification.

“I think the reason he WD’d at San Diego is there was no back problem, he was embarrassed to be out there,” DiMarco said, refuting Woods’ claim that misfiring flutes forced him to quit 11 holes into the first round. “He wasn’t doing anything good, and I think there was something wrong and he couldn’t take care of it.”

DiMarco contended that if Woods showed up for his April 9 tee time it would be because he had solved his short-game woes, though things could go sideways in a hurry.

“It’s easy to say you can fix it at home, chipping with your buddies or whatever,” DiMarco said. “But when it’s the first hole at Augusta and you’ve got to hit it over a bunker from short right and you’ve got no green to work with and everything is on the line, is that when it’s going to be fixed?”

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