No hope for Woods

UNIVERSITY PLACE. — New to golf broadcasting, Fox Sports also gets its first crack at Tiger Woods. And the two primary voices at the US Open, including Greg Norman, don’t have high expectations for him at Chambers Bay.

Woods now has gone seven years since he last won a major.

Due to injuries and yet another change in coaches, he has gone 18 months without finishing in the top 10 anywhere in the world. And he’s coming off an 85-74 weekend at the Memorial, the highest 36-hole score of his career.

“It’s a massive effort, mentally and physically, for him to get himself out of this hole he’s in,” Norman said on a conference call.

“The more he shoots 85, or extraordinary high numbers, the harder it is for him to get out of that hole.”

Norman will be in the booth with lead announcer Joe Buck, who said Woods has been “front and centre” for as long as Buck has been watching golf.

That hasn’t been the case the past two years except for being curious about a comeback. Woods missed the first two majors in 2014 because of back surgery, and he took a two-month break before this year’s Masters to fix his short game.

When the USGA announced in August 2013 that it had awarded Fox a 12-year contract to televise the US Open, Woods was coming off his fifth victory of the year that included a 61 at the Bridgestone Invitational. He was No. 1 in the world. He was the betting favourite at majors.

Golf has not lacked for a group of rising stars. Rory McIlroy is No. 1 in the world and already has four majors. Jordan Spieth is a Masters champion at age 21. Rickie Fowler recently picked up an important win at The Players Championship.

Woods still moves the needle. The question is how much.

“Trust me, we’re a network trying to get viewers,” Buck said. “They’ll get Tiger when it’s appropriate. But there’s no way you can go into expecting him to play great just because history doesn’t tell you that he will.”

Woods was among several players who took an early scouting trip to Chambers Bay, a course unlike any other for the US Open with its sprawling fairways shaped through man-made dunes and framed by rugged bunker complex. Built on a former sand-and-gravel pit that was mined for more than a century, it is not a links golf course. It just plays one on TV. Woods does not lack for imagination, and perhaps this brand of golf might help. — AFP.