#15, Late. Now for Part II

Any decent golf student should have seen it coming.

He had rounds and even tournaments where he drove it well enough. He putted as he used to many times, even had done enough to win in a small field at the Tour Championship. Most importantly, in the PGA last fall, he had proximity that in the end made the difference.  That can even improve, or at least remain more consistent. One thinks because that's what he's built on and doesn't need (although he sometimes uses) strength and power.

The first bit of evidence of the strength of proximity was early Sunday when on the Par 3 4th, he brought the ball in from the right side to that pin, he was good enough to land if just off and trickle it on to leave a makeable putt.  This was different, it was incredibly audacious.  In the end, he got to act rather Nicklaus-like as it all came apart so badly on the twelfth for most everyone else. That coupled with an enormous mental error on #15 for Molinari compounded by an unfortunate small branch and the Nicklaus Method was in play.  Nicklaus used to let everyone win Majors by waiting for them to screw up, that's why he had 19 second-place finishes. One wonders if he might have tried just a bit harder, maybe that's why he's so joyful in watching Tiger. He had said something like "Majors are easier to win, just sit back and let it come to you". That's easy to say when you are the best, but Tiger now just maybe can do it by following that road.

Now the question will be how many more as winning breeds confidence. As with the Tour Championship, The Masters is a very small field, adding more to the mix?  We'll see. I think TW is around for a little while more.

You can find it if you know where to look, but in 2008, I got called every name in the book (Before the #hater tag came along) for rendering my professional opinion that "It will be at least two more years before he wins another Major." Holy Cow, was I ever wrong. By nine years, but no one saw that mental and emotional failure coming.  I think that's the more important issue. I believed that he'd never win again. I believe he got a ton of bad medical advice, much of it his own fault by wanting perfection and "Only the Best". Good Enough is Good Enough! That lesson seemingly took him forever to learn, hopefully for his fans he has.

The enemy of Good is Better (And certainly best).