Tiger Woods needs to rethink his all-round technique, says Robert Lee

After the latest setback for Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines, Robert Lee believes the troubled former world No 1 needs to trade distance for accuracy if he wants to compete with the best again.

Once again, Tiger Woods has hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. Barely a week after the worst round of his professional career, Woods sprayed his ball to all parts of Torrey Pines before pulling out with a back problem.

The 11 holes he managed to complete were pretty ugly, he was all over the place. Apparently, he could not “reactivate the glutes” after his tee time was delayed by fog. He was “ready to go” after his warm-up, but he tightened up during the delay and that’s a worry.

Tiger had two back surgeries last year, took months to recover and everything was supposed to be good. He got his speed back, he was ripping the ball as far as he’s ever hit it, and that all suggested his back was fine.

Surely he should have been able to get himself fit and ready in time to tee off once the fog had cleared, but that wasn’t the case and he withdrew for the third time in his last eight starts.

It’s always difficult with Tiger. You wonder if withdrawing was convenient, or maybe he just lost his rag. It’s difficult to read between the lines, but his basic problem is that he’s playing horribly.

What he used to do when playing badly was turn a five-over front nine into a one under, he could do that time and time again. But now, especially with his short-game in such a state, he’s worse than ordinary.

If he has genuinely got the yips with his chipping, I fear there’s no way back for him. He talks about release patterns and reps, but the problem could be both mental and technical.

Technique

I agree with Phil Mickelson on this: When you’re chipping you have a specific technique to chip, it’s completely separate from his long game.

But every time Tiger changes coaches and then his swing, he incorporates a smaller version of the new swing into his chipping and that will always take some getting used to. Phil has a chipping method, and then he plays golf. The two are not related.

We’re not talking about any player here, we are talking about a 14-time major champion who is super talented. So to be as far out as he currently is, I think it’s more than just bad timing and rhythm.

He’s hitting it so badly he can barely hit a fairway or a green. He’s always been able to get away with being wayward off the tee because of his recovery play and his short-game.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how good your short-game is – if you can’t hit fairways and greens in regulation, you will fall away. There’s only so much you can make up for with your short game.

Does Tiger still want to be exciting to watch, hitting impossible recovery shots and belting it miles off the tee regardless of where it ends up?

Well, I think Rory McIlroy is exciting to watch, because he hits fairways and greens, makes a lot of birdies, and he wins tournaments.

Tiger obviously still has plenty of ego. He was once the longest guy out there. There was John Daly of course, but Tiger was the man – he was bigger and longer than anyone else. But as soon as players appeared who were longer than Tiger, he didn’t like it.

The first thing he talked about ahead of his comeback late last year was being “explosive” again. He wanted to hit the ball further, that’s all he talked about. He should have been saying he wanted to hit it better, or straighter, or be more consistent.

It was all about hitting the ball further. Trading distance for accuracy and hitting more fairways doesn’t seem to excite him, what gets his juices flowing is getting more mph with his driver.

What he’s doing now is chasing Rory, who’s got that natural ‘snap’ when he hits it.  Tiger sees Rory sending it out there 320 yards through the air, and it’s like he’s trying to play catch-up. The crucial difference is that most of Rory’s drives find the short grass!

Open coming to Sky

The other big news this week was, of course, the decision to award exclusive live broadcasting rights of the Open Championship to Sky Sports from 2017 onwards.

It’s fantastic for Sky because they’ve now got the full set of majors. I’m personally delighted, and I can’t wait to be a part of it.

I work at the Open virtually every year anyway doing radio for the R&A and, although all the other majors are all fantastic in their own ways, The Open is very different to the other three.

It’s links golf, it’s erratic, it’s luck of the draw, it’s hoping for good bounces and avoiding bad lies. It is unique, and many players feel it is 'the' major of them all.

I can see us being there from the opening tee shot at 6.30am to when the final putt is holed as dusk sets in at around 9.30pm. It will be wall-to-wall coverage and I’m sure we’ll see things we’ve never seen before. Our superb innovations team can fill their boots!