Monday 8 June 2015 18:08, UK
Rob Lee says Tiger Woods is kidding himself if he thinks he can contend at the US Open and feels his career has reached an all-time low.
Woods carded an embarrassing 13-over round of 85 on Saturday at Memorial and finished the tournament in last place on a 14-over-par total 302, eight shots adrift of the next worst finishers, a group including former US Open champion Lucas Glover.
The former world No 1 is now languishing at 181st in the Official World Golf Ranking, and 196th in the 2015 FedEx Cup standings, and Lee feels it is easily the low point of what has been a glittering career.
Lee told Sky Sports News HQ: "What’s going wrong with him? 85 for Tiger Woods? Even though he is in transition and he’s getting his release pattern sorted out, and all the stuff that he comes out with, for him to shoot 85 in a tournament was just horrible to watch.
"Tiger’s had a colourful personal life of late, in amongst that injury and trying to get back to world No 1, and that is a difficult combination to get right and to try and work your way out of. This is an all-time low what he did on Saturday. On a golf course I think he has won five times on it must have just been heartbreaking for him.
"Nothing was going right, everything he was doing wrong just got worse and in the end 85 had to go down on the card. That’s a really bitter pill to swallow for a guy like him."
Lee hinted that Woods might be trying too hard to get back to the top of the world too quickly, and that the game has moved on since he was in his prime, winning more than $10m in prize money in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Even his resurgence in 2013, when he claimed five tournament victories, is a distant memory as the young generation starts to leave him well behind.
He added: "What’s difficult for Tiger is that the world has changed. While he has been away, other players like McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and all the great young Americans, they’ve had time to blossom.
"When he was in the loop and dominating he made everyone else play badly. They just couldn’t play him, he totally dominated them and over-powered them. Now he’s trying to make a comeback and these guys are not scared of him anymore. That’s one thing he has to battle against. And the next thing is, what does he do with his action, his swing.
"He’s on his fourth major coach with Chris Como. You keep changing coaches and swings, there is uncertainty in there and none of it is good for Tiger Woods. He needs some stability in his personal life and in his theme, what he is trying to do with his game, from top to bottom. I haven’t seen that.
"All I hear from Tiger is talking about his power – ‘I've got my speed back’ – when he should be concerned about control, he doesn’t need speed. If a couple of guys knock it 10 yards past him so what? Between the ears he is still amazing, he never gives up, he’s intense and he can find a performance from somewhere.
"It’s just his body and his mind right now won’t let him do it. He must be discombobulated between the ears right now, trying to figure out what is it I have to do to get back to something like the Tiger Woods I know I can be."
Woods will be back in action in just over a week when the season's second major championship takes place - the US Open, which is being hosted at the tough Chambers Bay links in Washington state.
Despite his struggles, Woods says he is confident his game is in shape to contend, but Lee feels nothing could be further from the truth.
He said: "I can’t think of a worse place for him to be going in the current form he is in than a US Open. I can’t think of a worse venue than Chambers Bay.
"You’ll see on our screens on Sky Sports it is visually the most incredible golf course, the most amazing green complexes, but it is very exacting. Tiger’s game is not exacting. He’s wild off the tee and then recovering all the time. You just can’t do that at a US Open, you have to have some control and Tiger hasn’t got it.
"He’ll be in the full glare of the world’s public. They’ll be thinking ‘what’s Tiger going to shoot today?’ almost in a mawkish way. It’s not like ‘is he going to shoot 65, 66, it’s will it be 76, 78, 80’, the kind of fascination Tiger doesn’t want right now.
"How can he feel confident going into the US Open after finishing 29 shots behind the leaders. Eight shots worse than the next worst player who made the cut.
"You can’t kid people and do that, and say I am feeling really confident going into the US Open. That is impossible. It’s not so much the number you write down, it’s how you play. The driver was going everywhere, the short game wasn’t up to much, there wasn’t one element in his game apart from his fight, that was working. I’m not buying it."
Watch the US Open live on Sky Sports 4 - coverage of the first round starts on Thursday June 18 at 5.00pm.
