Page 17 - Golf Champion - January 2021

be surprised.” pieces went haywire in the final round.
Twenty? Isn’t that a bit – um – optimistic? A 10 at the 12th hole, where he hit three
“Well – it probably is optimistic,” Lehman balls in the water, was the highest score
allowed, “but he’s done so many things in of his career but he bounced back with
the game that I didn’t think were possible. birdies on five of the last six.
I would never put limits on what he might On the plus side, Woods’ closing burst
do. He’s not far from a five-win season showed he’s still got it. On the minus side,
(in 2013). The limitations on him are he shot 76 and finished T38.
how physically fit he can be, how much “We love Tiger,” Bubba Watson said at
he’s able to practice and work, but the the PNC. “We want to see him succeed.
great champions do things you think are But again, it comes down to how he feels,
impossible.” what’s the weather like, what did he do,
It was only last December, for example, how’s his body reacting. As you get older
that Woods went 3-0-0 as playing captain it’s going to slow down no matter what,
of the winning U.S. Presidents Cup Team, but now it’s going to slow down even more
becoming the first in the history of that so because of his surgeries and injuries.
event with 27 victories. He was coming off But hopefully we still have those roars
his 82nd win at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP we’ve seen the last couple years with
in Japan in the fall, his emotional Masters Atlanta, Augusta and Japan. I think we all
victory the previous April, and an earth- want to see it.”
shaking TOUR Championship win before Big, brawny courses like Bethpage Black,
that. where Woods won the 2002 U.S. Open,
Three victories in 13 months. are no longer his friends. But the greatest
Lately, though? Well, Woods hasn’t been iron player of all time, with one of the
all that good. best minds, can still feast on second-shot
“I haven't put all the pieces together at courses like Augusta National and East
the same time,” he said prior to the 2020 Lake and a whole lot of other places.
Masters in November, when he again Maybe he’ll start playing the Bermuda
didn’t put it all together at the same time. Championship, where light-hitting Brian
Tied for 10th after an opening-round 68, Gay just won, or the Sanderson Farms
he faded from there before the proverbial Championship, which crowned iron

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