Tiger Woods will begin his 2011 campaign to return to the top of the golf world at the Farmers Insurance Open, starting Thursday at Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif., where he won the 2008 U.S. Open - the last major of the 14 he's won.
But the biggest question at the moment isn't whether he will be able to reclaim the No. 1 ranking (he's currently No. 3). It is simple to ask but difficult to answer: Can Woods, 35, play intuitive, rather than mechanical, golf again?
"I've played well in stretches, and now the stretches are lasting longer," Woods said after he lost a playoff last December to 2010 U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell at the Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
"It was just a few holes, and then it became nine holes, and [in the first round]it was all 18 holes."
Woods has practised extensively since, with swing coach Sean Foley at his side. Foley, a Canadian, flew out Monday from Orlando, where he lives, to work with Woods this week.
"Tiger has improved a great deal in the last four months," Foley wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday. "He is keeping his levels much better in his swing, as well as a much better hand path on the backswing that stays connected to the body, and the shaft is being set more vertical which has eliminated him being stuck on the downswing.
"He has been a pleasure to work with and is a fantastic student and teaching me at the same time. He is very committed to the process."
No golfer, no matter how gifted, can think and swing at the same time.
Bobby Jones, the great amateur who retired at 28 in 1930, after winning the then-Grand Slam that year (the U.S. and British Amateurs and Opens), said he played his best golf when he had no swing thoughts. He could get around sometimes with one thought, but he much preferred an empty mind. Instinctive golf, that is.
For Woods, as for all golfers, there's a tension between being thought-full and thought-empty. He's said frequently it's not possible to play winning golf when one's fundamentals are wrong. At the same time, he's changed what he considers the fundamentals over the course of his career, and still won those 14 majors and 71 PGA Tour events.
Think about some of the shots that have defined Woods's career.
Canadians will instantly recall the 6-iron he hit from a fairway bunker on the last hole of the 2000 Canadian Open at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont. Woods was 218 yards from the hole, and hit his ball out of the bunker while barely taking a grain of sand. The ball finished behind the hole in the short fringe. Woods two-putted for birdie to win.
Five years later, he was behind the green on the par-three 16th hole in the last round of the 2005 Masters, facing what appeared to be an impossibly tricky pitch shot. He aimed 25 feet left of the hole. His eyes darted back and forth from his ball to a landing spot to the slope between that and the hole, and to the hole itself.
Woods hit his spot and the ball trickled down to the hole, falling in on its last rotation.
"In your life, have you seen anything like that?" CBS announcer Verne Lundquist said in his famous call.
Well, no.
Woods won that Masters in a playoff over Chris DiMarco. Woods hit those shots with instinct, with creativity, and with feel. Deep feel.
Come Thursday, Woods will try to play golf, not golf swing. Has he grooved the mechanics to the extent he can set them aside?
"He is definitely getting to where he can put it together for 72 holes," Foley said. "I anticipate a great year for him, but it's always important to remember how much he spoiled us [with his play]for the last decade."
The examination begins Thursday. The golf world awaits an answer to the big question.
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and, most recently, he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 11 books, including The Natural Golf Swing, with George Knudson (1988); Links: An Insider's Tour Through the World of Golf (1990); The Swing, with Nick Price (1997); The Fundamentals of Hogan, with David Leadbetter (2000); A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands (2001); Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); and his latest, This Round's on Me (2009). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at rube@sympatico.ca . You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein