Woods' confidence high as he continues to improve

By Joe Wojciechowski
PGATOUR.com Senior Editor
 

DORAL, Fla. -- Tiger Woods tends to tweak those who ask obvious questions with a “Yeah, you think?” answer. Like, if someone asked Woods if it’s good to win, they’d get a “Yeah, you think?”

So, turnabout is fair play, right?

After winning his second straight Ford Championship at Doral, his 48th PGA TOUR event and doing it with an ease that the final margin of victory hardly indicates, Woods said his confidence is “pretty high.”

Yeah, you think?

Woods is playing at a level that only NASA can track. Not counting when he withdrew with the flu at the Nissan Open, Woods has won four straight stroke play official events. He played arguably the most dominating round of golf of the year when he beat Stephen Ames 9 and 8 at the World Golf Championship-Accenture Match Play Championship. Heck, he’s mishitting shots that are still ending up on the green (see No. 13 on Sunday, when Woods hits it seemingly so bad he drops the club, only to see it land on the green).

“It’s fun to see that all the hard work that Hank (Haney) and I have been putting into it is starting to pay off where I’m able to play consistently day after day,” Woods said. “That’s why I work as hard as I do is to be as consistent as I have been. It’s nice to see it because we spend countless hours away where (no one) can see it. It’s fun to see it coming together like this.”

Case in point, Woods won Doral last year with a record score of 24 under. He says his game is better now. He has a variety of golf shots that he couldn’t hit last year. He’s able to adjust and fix his swing on the course this year.

Look no further than No. 9 on Saturday. After he hit his tee shot into the water on the par-3 hole, he identified the problem and fixed it before he picked up the 8-iron again.

“I didn’t have that ability before,” Woods said. “Last year at this time, I had so many things I was still working on that I had a hard time fixing it because if I hit one shot, it could be three or four different things I needed to work on to try to rectify that shot. Now I know exactly what to do and I can rectify it on the very next shot.”

So Woods keeps shaping his shots, working on his game. He sees subtle results the fan wouldn’t notice if he hit the shot 100 times. Stuff like flight of the golf ball, trajectory and more words like shaping the shot and the feeling of his swing.

“I hit one today, even though no one really realizes the shot I hit on No. 8. I had a 103 yards and I hit a little 9-iron in there. That was a cool shot,” Woods said. “The flight of it, I hit a draw in there which is hard to do hitting it with that shaft, held it back against the wind, hit it right against the flag. That, to me, is where I’m trying to get to, the ability to hit shots like that on-call.”

See? Who knew you needed an engineering degree to understand golf. Maybe there’s a reason Woods went to Stanford.

But now, Woods just keeps on working and winning. This wasn’t the perfect four rounds, so he’ll be back on the range perfecting his swing some more.

“Still got some work to do,” Wood said. “That’s the beauty of it, that I can be better tomorrow than I am today.”