Tiger going it alone at Memorial
It's official - there's been a parting of the ways, and from now on Tiger Woods is looking after No. 1. That's the No. 1 world ranking, just in case you were wondering.
With swing coach Hank Haney having had quite enough of the whole kerfuffle about Woods' recent woes - swing-related and otherwise - the golfer has confirmed he intends to coach himself, for the time being at least.
At a press conference on the eve of the first round of today's Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio, Woods revealed that he'd been relying on video technology to work on his swing. A further journalistic prod and Woods added that when it came to securing the services of a new swing coach, the 34-year-old had "no plans."
Woods is known for his brevity - and sometimes his inability to tell the whole story - so that could just mean "no plans for now." The embattled golfer might have embarked on something of a charm offensive in recent months, but still he remains a close-mouthed sort at heart.
Certainly, he was at his most uncommunicative - and ungracious - when grilled about his neck injury, one journalist pressing Woods with the reasonable observation that: "sometimes you seemed to be be not as forthcoming with some of the information. Do you see that as a competitive issue, why you may not tell us exactly what's going on with some of the injuries you have?"
The response? A withering: "You don't need to know."
Woods was willing to share the information that his neck feels pretty good right now, and he also exhibited a certain dignity on the subject of Haney, saying of the coach's departure, which came about partly because of Woods' personal problems: " I understand it. I mean, there's a lot going on, as we all have seen. I totally understand it."
Elsewhere, if he wasn't quite as bullish as we've come to expect, Woods still exuded a cautious optimism, stating: "It would be nice to get four rounds in and be in contention and hopefully win this thing. That's kind of where I'd like to be."
He also insisted he was good enough to play, injury-wise, but suggested that he was incapable of reproducing the famous swing that won the US Open by a record 15 shots in 2000, saying: "I can't make that swing anymore. I don't have the speed. I'm getting older."
Woods has won the Memorial a record four times, and looked sharp in a pre-tournament skins game yesterday, winning six skins. But Phil Mickelson, playing in a separate group, looked similarly dangerous, winning all nine skins in the event to comfortably beat Muirfield Village course designer Jack Nicklaus.
If Mickelson can bounce back from last week's missed cut at Colonial, he could still topple Woods from the No. 1 spot - though he would also be reliant on his fiercest rival missing a finish in the top four in order to seize the crown. As beleaguered as Woods may still be feeling, the 14-time major winner will surely not relinquish his top spot without making Mickelson sweat for it.
And let's not forget that the mercurial Rory McIlroy is more than capable of challenging either player - as he proved when playing Mickelson off the course at Quail Hollow last month with that already legendary closing round of 62.
Anyway you cut it, this week's Memorial has the raw material to be a classic. Let's just hope that sometimes tacit Tiger isn't carrying some other game-threatening injury he's deemed not worth mentioning to the ladies and gents of the press.
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