Last week I picked Hunter Mahan to win the Master's Tournament and couldn't have been more wrong. He missed the cut, and I was left pondering why I even picked a winner in the first place. Picking a golfer to win a major might be the hardest thing to pick in all of sports. I also made the claim the Tiger Woods would finish out of the top 10. I'm glad my reverse jinx worked. I never bet on Tiger, with the hope that he wins every weekend. And this past weekend he came ever so close.
When Tiger rolled in the eagle putt on eight, as Rory McIlroy bogeyed a few holes back, I slipped up. I said, "finally, here it is, Tiger is back and this thing is his to lose." And he did just that. At that point the tournament was tied, but Tiger couldn't get anything going on the back nine, as his putts were fractionally off on almost every hole. This was the story of the tournament for Tiger. He took too many putts after making so many solid iron shots all week. If he had the same number of putts in round three that he had in round two, he would've been tied with McIlroy going into the final round. Who knows what would've happened in that scenario, but I'd like to think Tiger would've come out on top.
Kudos to Charl Schwartzel, his putter caught fire when it needed to and he is a deserving winner of the Green Jacket. Even more deserving of credit however, is Ernie Els. His Fancourt Foundation has been taking young under-privileged South-African golfers and giving them the resources to be successful in both golf and life. Schwartzel marks the second member of this foundation to have won a major (the first being Louis Oothuizen at last year's British Open). Without Els' hard work and dedication, South African golf would be light years behind where it is today.
Back to Tiger. Is he back? That question can only be answered by another one: will he re-find his putting stroke? Because if he does, and he continues to hit the ball like he did at Augusta, winning the U.S. or British Open will happen. Had he knocked some putts down at Augusta, he could've won going away. I think he'll have enough time to get his putting stroke right before the summer, and I will break all the rules I established earlier in the article. I'm predicting Tiger Woods wins one of the next two majors and gets right back on track to take down Jack Nicklaus' all-time majors' record.
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