Am I the only one or is everyone else tired of hearing about Tiger and his mechanics?  It seems like nothing more than an excuse to address his real issues.

Yes, last month’s win at Bay Hill may justify Tiger’s faith in his new swing, but, I’m just not buying it.  I’m saying it was a fluke, a blip on the radar screen, an aberration.

Golf, like any other sport, is a product of both preparation and natural ability and as much as many of  would love to have been a professional athlete, it doesn’t  take very long to realize that our lack of natural ability would never going to allow this to happen.

Tiger, on the other hand, was blessed with the athletic prowess that allowed him to become one of the two greatest golfers of all time along with Jack Nicklaus.  In fact, just recently, I’ve heard a few announcers state that in their respective primes Nicklaus was no where near as good a ball striker as Tiger.  So the logical question is, what happened to Tiger?

A lot of people will, no doubt, blame much of Tiger’s lack of success on the problems in his personal life.  While turmoil in your private life is never good in your professional life no matter what your line of work is, I don’t believe this was the case for Tiger.  I think Tiger may be one of those handful of people who can really separate their private and public lives.

What I think has happened to Tiger is that he has lost faith in his natural ability.  When  first on tour, he went out and played and kicked everyone’s butt.  He hit the ball longer than everyone else, he made more putts than the other players, hell, he was even in better condition than the other competitors.  But, at the end of the day, he really won because he performed better than anyone else when the chips were down.  That was the greatest of Tiger’s natural ability – to perform the best under the greatest pressure.

But, as the years slowly passed, others on the tour began to equal Tiger’s physical tools so it seemed like he lost faith in what had gotten him to the top of the heap.  He had mistakenly thought that ball striking was the key to winning, when, in reality, his mental resolve was the key to his winning, as it is in most athletic endeavors.

Now, Tiger slogs through coaches and swing changes looking for the elusive magic elixir that will return him to his glory days when the answer is right where its always been; inside of him.

The problem, though, that Tiger now faces is that he has become so mechanics-bound that he is almost incapable of returning to the days where he just played golf and beat his opponents with his mental resolve.  He is caught in a quandary that is further hamstrung by both father-time and a life-time of physical wear and tear on his body.

Can Tiger win again?  Sure, why not.  He’ll have tournaments when the mechanics are working and he is able to play without thinking, but, those will be sporadic.  What is more likely to happen is he’ll have good rounds that he will sabotage as soon as he feels that something is not lined up correctly; that his swing is out of sync.

In some ways it is sad to see a man who is really a victim of his own undoing, but, that may be the price you have to pay when you think you know all of the answers, when, in reality, you don’t even know the right questions to ask.

Of course, none of this will change Tiger’s legacy, but, I would not be surprised to see Tiger out of the game by the time he reaches 40 years old.