Then There's Tiger At The Players & His Letter Writing

The AP's Doug Ferguson looks at the emergence of Rickie Fowler at last week's Players and what it means for the year going forward.

At the end of this piece, he delves into the amazing lack of fear many of today's young guns demonstrate, with the idea that no player can exude an intimidation factor. Which leads things to Tiger.

Due mainly to injuries and swing change, he has finished only six tournaments in the last 18 months and he has not been closer than nine shots to the winner. He fell to No. 133 in the world this week.

It’s still too early to rule him out.

Even in a closing round of 72 on Sunday, there were signs he was caught between his old swing and his new one. He has been down this road with three other coaches. It won’t be any easier to win once he figures it out because the competition is younger and just as good, if not better, than Woods at 39. As good as golf is now, that would make it even better.

After Sunday's final round, GolfDigest.com's John Strege documented some of the candid announcer takeaways.

Criticisms cut deep. “I think he is entirely lost,” David Duval said on Golf Channel following Woods’ first round. “Never seen such a brilliant player playing ‘golf swing’ so much like he is. It looks like he is thinking about every position through the entire golf swing. That has handcuffed him both physically and between the ears.”

NBC’s Johnny Miller suggested Woods return to the classroom with yet another different teacher. “I think he’s playing pretty bad,” Miller said in the midst of the third round. “His short game is not good. I don’t even know what is good. I probably shouldn’t say this. He probably needs to get another teacher. I think he needs to get a whole different line of thinking. I think what he’s doing now is not working.”

On a positive note, Woods sent a letter to a young man he heard about thanks to Sophie Gustafson and Golf Digest's Ron Sirak's recent item.

Here's Sirak following up on the sweet gesture from Woods.

A week ago Sophie, who has been mentoring Dillon, told me the cruelty of other children had driven Dillon to attempting suicide. I wrote that story, not using Dillon's name at the time, and mentioned that he is a huge Tiger Woods fan.

Immediately I heard from the Woods camp asking for the boy's address. Then, on Sunday, I got this text message from Sophie:

"Tiger sent Dillon a letter and told him he also stuttered when he was younger," Sophie wrote. "He's ecstatic. We did good Ron."