The Bottom Line With Tiger Woods - He Needs to Play More

One thing we are forgetting about with the word that Tiger Woods is again injured is it takes away from Tiger's time on the golf course. Not so much on the practice range, or the putting green, but from actual time on the golf course, playing for money, playing in tournaments and competing against guys that are as good, if not better than him.

My dad, who tends to toss his opinions of Tiger at me without any reservation, has been saying for the last two years that Tiger isn't playing enough tournaments, and while my argument has always been that he limits his schedule, it sure seems that my father is more and more correct the more and more time Tiger takes off.

Again, we are going to see Woods taking a large, if not substantial, chunk of time away from golf. He won't be hitting balls, he won't be practicing, but more importantly, he won't be in that tournament mode. Take it from someone that has played in big events before in the past; it is nearly impossible to expect a ton out of yourself if you aren't out there weekly or biweekly playing where every shot counts.

Think about it like this - if your goal for 2011 was to get in shape, and tone up your muscles, what would you expect; that it would happen in two weeks and you'd be set, or that it would take an extended period of time, with a full commitment to the gym from yourself, to get it to actually happen? Of course it isn't going to happen overnight. To get good at something, you need to really throw yourself fully into it.

Here is something else to think about - since Tiger won the 2008 U.S. Open, he has taken 259 days off between starts, 154 days between starts, and 56 days between starts. That's a total of 469 days since '08 of breaks between starts, which is INSANE if you think about it. This is a guy that is built for tournament golf, yet he is being forced, for injuries and personal reasons, to take substantial time away from the game and not be mentally prepared for the act of playing in a tournament.

If this injury takes more time off of Tiger actually getting on the course and letting the swing changes and other things get worked out, it'll just be longer until Woods is comfortable in the mode that it takes to win.

He needs more reps, and it just seems his body isn't letting him right now. Hopefully this current injury doesn't last long, but it would be in Tiger's best interest to take the allotted time away so he can come back 100 percent and actually play throughout the summer without anything nagging.

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