Tiger Woods showed he still has “all the tools” to compete at the Masters but must improve the simple parts of his game, says Nick Dougherty.
The 14-time major winner came through his opening round with a one-over par 73 to put him alongside the likes of Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter in the standings, nine shots off leader Jordan Spieth.
Woods rolled back the years on the seventh hole with an aggressive cut-shot over the trees to land 10 feet away from the pin, before putting for par to complete an excellent recovery.
Dougherty told Masters Breakfast that the former world No 1 is the only player in the sport who had the ability to perform that type of stroke.
“The things that Tiger is really struggling with are the simple things. He hasn’t got the belief in himself to execute things that a lot of the other players are doing; finding the fairway with the tee, being solid with his iron play and not spinning out and losing shots to the right.
“When you give him shots like that then it’s all about creativity and commitment and he goes for it.
“For me it is as excited as I have been for a long time watching Tiger Woods because it reminded me of why I idolised him growing up.
“In my mind there is only one player in the world in golf that can pull that off. Tiger showed us that he still has the tools, but he just has to tidy up the simple things.”
Woods dropped out of the world’s top 100 for the first time since September 1996 having started just two events in 2015, before announcing his comeback to the sport for the first major of the year.