Driving is no longer advantage for Woods
Tuesday at Augusta National, Tiger Woods spoke with awe of long hitters Dustin Johnson and Gary Woodland. It was reminiscent of what was said about Woods 14 years ago when he won his first Masters by a record score (270) and margin (12 strokes).
“When Gary steps on it whole, it’s like, whoa, are you kidding me?” Woods told reporters. “His ball is flat. When you think it should be coming down, it just continues to fly.”
With length off the tee always a premium at Augusta, Johnson and Woodland are two of the trendy picks for this year’s Masters, which opens Thursday. Both are 26-year-old former basketball players who rank in the top 10 in driving distance.
Woods, 35, who ranks No. 67 in driving distance, remembers what it was like to be young, long, athletic, and unencumbered by surgically repaired knees and excessive swing thoughts. He sounded envious when speaking about Woodland, who he was paired with last month at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
| The Masters |
| When » Thursday-Sunday |
| Where » Augusta (Ga.) National |
| TV » ESPN (Thursday-Friday), CBS (Saturday-Sunday) |
“It was a 335 carry with a bunker on the right and he hit the face of it,” Woods said. “And he’s all bent out of shape that he couldn’t carry it. And he said, ‘I lost the ability to carry 340 now.’ Like sorry, I had never seen that shot.”
Woods averaged 316 yards off the tee in 2005 but is down to 289 yards this season, albeit in a small sample size (four events). Gone are the days when four-time champion Woods overpowered Augusta, such as 1997, when he played the par 5s in 13-under-par.
“I don’t hit driver wedge to 15 anymore,” Woods said of his legendary feat in 1997. “Actually, sometimes out of the trees [now], I wedge it out.”
Part of it is the course. No. 15 and several other holes at Augusta have been lengthened. At 7,445 yards, Augusta is 520 yards longer than in 2001.
“This is the one week that I swing the absolute hardest,” Phil Mickelson said
To illustrate the importance of length, Mickelson, 40, will put a second driver in his bag this week.
“[It has] an inch longer shaft and different loft,” Mickelson said. “It goes 15, 20 yards farther.”
While Mickelson has become the new king of Augusta, winning three times in the last seven years, Woods is seeking his first title since 2005. In the five Masters since, however, Woods has never finished worse than sixth.
He may not have the length of Johnson or Woodlands, but Woods says there’s more to Augusta than distance.
“They can hit it a long way, but I can manage myself around the golf course,” Woods said. “It’s about making the right decisions and plodding the ball along, and more so on this golf course than anything else, missing the ball in the right spots.”
