Tiger Woods fades quietly on Sunday at the Memorial

Sunday was a disappointment for Tiger at Muirfield Village, but this was not a lost week with the U.S. Open bearing down next.

Tiger Woods started his Sunday at the Memorial by drilling a 14-foot putt right in the center of the hole. He walked it in, the birdie went up on the board, and it felt like it could be the start of a special final round charge. The putter had been the one club holding him back this week at Muirfield Village, where he’s been posting some of the best ballstriking stats of his career. Now he had a 14-footer to boost him on the opening hole and a full morning ahead of him chasing down some of the younger talents on the leaderboard.

What followed, however, was a slow bleeding out of Tiger’s chances to win this Memorial Tournament for a sixth time. The ballstriking, while fine, was not as crisp as the preceding days and the putting continued to confound him. At times some of the misses were painful and each one he stood over made you, if not sweating bullets, then certainly unconfident. That’s a bit foreboding with the U.S. Open just two weeks away, the next time we’ll see Tiger in competition.

Woods finished his week at 9-under, the Sunday even-par 72 dropping him 16 spots down the leaderboard when he walked off the course. He’s tied for 23rd and a good seven shots back of the leader.

The Good

Tiger’s tee-to-green work was not just some of the best this season, but some of the best of his career. His strokes gained tee-to-green number on Friday was the second best in 500 measured rounds. His approach shots were mostly crisp. His wedges and short game came through again for him when he was in tight spots. There were mishits and imprecise strikes but this was the strength of his game. He’s hitting everything pin-high again, which he said back in February has been the “hallmark” of his career.

The driver is not as godawful wild as the start of the season but he is hitting that stinger more and more off the tee, opting to leave the driver in the bag. There will be some moments where he has to hit driver at the Shinnecock Hills, but expect much more of that stinger at the season’s second major.

I think Tiger has this machismo complex about nuking the ball as far as anyone in the field and showing he can play with the young bombers of the day. My working theory is that he proved he can do that already this season with all those astronomical ball speed and clubhead speed numbers. Now he is throttling down to more sensible plays off the tee instead of trying to put on some sort of gun show that keeps getting him in trouble.

Tiger has proven over the course of his career, and certainly this season, that his ballstriking is good enough to play more conservatively and not worry about bombing it to wedge distance on every hole. It should go without saying that will be critical to whoever is going to win the U.S. Open in two weeks. Keep it in play, strike the ball to your spots, and avoid trouble. The putting disaster will get much of the play but the fact that this part of Tiger’s game is in such good shape -- a best-in-the-field kind of shape -- is still remarkable given we weren’t sure if he’d ever play the Tour again.

The Bad

Tiger is dialed in and playing his ass off in way that exceeds any expectations a reasonable mind set at the start of the year. The competitive reps matter, but it would be great to see him get a few more contending reps, too. Sunday was that slow bleeding out and he never really had to play under the gun. In fact, he seemed checked out on the back nine when he knew his shot at winning was gone.

The Valspar Championship back in March was a real shot at contention but since then, he’s spent several events just kind of making noise on the weekend but never really getting close. Even though he’s accomplished everything in the game, those nerves still need to be measured before he’s thrown into the major championship cooker. On Saturday, Tiger got his first weekend lead of the season, momentarily matching the 11-under mark of Kyle Stanley. But then he made a few nervy swings off the tee, tugged some wedges in a way he hadn’t for most of the day, and blew a few easy putts. The game that had charged him to the top of the leaderboard left him for a bit.

Then he never really got in it on Sunday mostly because ...

The Ugly

Tiger’s putting was complete garbage. It looked bad aesthetically and was even worse on paper. He pulled a three-footer on Sunday so bad that it did not even come close to the edge of the cup. I looked up, saw it, and screamed out in pain like I’d just watched some safety destroy a receiver coming over the middle. It was so bad you felt the twinge of pain through your TV.

Setting aside the aesthetics, here are some of the grisly on-paper numbers from Golf Channel ace Justin Ray:

Ugly might not be a strong enough word for his putting but there is still ...

Hope

A defect in the golf swing or a lack of feels can take weeks and months to fix. Putting can be much more fickle. It comes and goes and sometimes it’s just a matter of judging the speed on that week’s greens. We saw Tiger post some comparably ugly putting numbers at the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte last month, then turn around and post some of his best putting numbers a weekend later at The Players.

A bad putter usually stays a career bad putter, but there are always weeks when you can start feeling it. Tiger is, historically, an excellent putter. Those feels came back faster than any other part of his game that might be off and fortunately for him, putting is really the only deficiency in his game with two weeks to go to the U.S. Open.