Tiger Woods News
10 November 2004 - Summing up 2004 for Tiger Woods
By his own very high standards 2004 was disappointing for Tiger Woods on the golfing front. On the personal front, of course, it's quite a different matter; and it could be argued either way whether personal happiness affects one's effectiveness on the golf course at the highest level.
To focus on the golf: Woods ended 2004 with just one US Tour victory, and was fourth on the final US Money List. Even allowing for the fact that he played 19 events compared to the third-placed Mickelson's 22; no allowances can be made to rank him above Ernie Els who only played in 16 events and Vijay Singh, who played in 29 events, but notched up $10.9m compared to Tiger's $5.4m.
Of course, talk of a crisis is ridiculous, but in 2004 Tiger hit only 568 out of 1012 fairways. Tiger is a master of recovery shots, but he was setting a large hurdle to overcome.
So what does the future hold? If one seeks the answers from British bookmakers then it would appear from their early prices that the 2005 money list will be hotly contested between him and Vijay Singh - the latter edging it and even odds-on with some of the bookies.
However, Tiger Woods is favourite with most of the bookies to take the 2005 US Masters. Obviously the bookmakers have a delicate balance to make in setting their prices, they want to fill their satchels but also spread their risk.
For all I know British bookmakers could be factoring in a tendency to a traditional undersupport of Singh coupled with a loyalty and faith in Woods, and setting their prices accordingly.
With the health warning that I know very little about it: in terms of the money list - isn't it a heck of a long time to tie up money on a 2-1 shot for Tiger? I would be interested to hear what people think of EW (1-3, 1/5) flutters on Ernie Els at 10-1 and Adam Scott at 66-1!