• Out of Bounds

Stop talking Tiger, start doing

The frustration for Tiger Woods has been obvious for people to see © PA Photos

Enlarge

Related Links

• News: Palmer predicts imminent Woods victory
  
• Profile: Tiger Woods

You do get the feeling that the time for Tiger Woods to stop talking has come. There's only so many times you can bear to hear him trot out the same old lines about 'making progress' and that his swing changes 'are a work in progress'.

At times we've seen flashes of the real Tiger this season, his closing 66 at the WGC-Cadillac Championship being one, but too often he has been swinging the club like a 16-handicapper and putting like a player with no feel. He says it took a couple of years for him to adapt to the changes he made in 1997, which is true, but back then he was 22 and had an air of invincibility about him that struck fear into his opponents.

The changes he is now making have come on the back of a slump in form and meltdown in his personal life. The changes he made in 1997 came about as a result of a decision to switch coaches and look for greater efficiency in his game. When he returned to the course following the public fall from grace towards the end of 2009, it can be said with relative certainty that Woods was not looking to make fundamental changes to his game. If he had come back and strung together a run of wins, maybe a major or two, you would not have seen him reach for the panic button.

But he came back and after producing a fine effort in last year's Masters, his game went to pieces. Poor round followed poor round. There was a complete failure to control the ball and it prompted Woods to separate from Hank Haney and enlist the help of Sean Foley. Major changes to a golf swing do take time, just ask Sir Nick Faldo, Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington. At the moment we are not seeing any real positive signs. A player of Woods' ability will produce the odd brilliant shot no matter how bad he is playing simply because of who he is. But it needs to be done consistently and consistency is not what we have seen for a long time.

Woods has never found perfection. He may have been seeking it but he has never found it and that is what has made him so exciting to watch. One of the finest players to pick up a club, he has spent plenty of time in tricky spots. His ability to find his way out of trouble, similar to Seve Ballesteros, is what excites and keeps the public so enthralled. Golf would be a pretty boring game to watch if on every hole he spanked the ball down the middle, fired an iron into the centre of the green and made a putt or two. A win or two more may have come his way had he played that way, but he would not have won as many fans.

He has talked about engaging more with his fans, but what his fans want - aside from an autograph and the occasional smile - is to see him strutting his stuff on the course.

We've had endless talk about heading in the right direction and he was at it again on Monday.

"I'm looking at winning golf tournaments and whether that's one, 10, 20, 50 - whatever it may be - if I am able to progress all the time, then I am going to win my share," he said. "That's the approach I've had when I was with my other coaches and we went on these little runs - and they were pretty good runs - and hopefully Sean and I can get on one of those runs.

"I've been through this process before, when I was working with Hank early on. They said the same thing: 'I was slumped, I was having a hard time. How can you change your swing after the '97 Masters?' I went through a nice spell of bad play but then Butch [Harmon] and I got it going and we won some tournaments."

Talking about winning isn't quite the same as winning and until he gets back in the saddle and ends a barren run that stretches back to the winter of 2009 the questions will remain. But Out of Bounds would prefer him not to answer.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.