An emotional Tiger Woods described the late Charlie Sifford, and the first African-American to join the PGA Tour, like a ‘grandpa’.
Sifford passed away yesterday aged 91 years.
“It’s been tough. Very tough,” Woods said after played just nine holes of Wednesday’s Farmers Insurance Open after fog had halted the start to play.
“He’s like my grandpa that I never had. And it’s been a long night and it’s going to be a long few days.
“He fought, and what he did, the courage it took for him to stick with it and be out here and play, I probably wouldn’t be here. My dad would never have picked up the game. Who knows if the clause would still exist or not. But he broke it down.”
Tiger Woods and new coach, Chris Como during today’s shortened Farmers Insurance Pro-Am. (Photo – www.pgatour.com)
Woods initially paid tribute to Sifford yesterday (TUES) via Twitter.
But after sharing last place in last week’s Phoenix Open it was back to work for the 14-time Major winner who has now dropped to No. 56 in the world and only the second time in his career he’s been outside the top-50.
And walking with Woods over the nine holes where he captured his 14th and last Major (2008 US Open) was new coach, Chris Como.
“The whole idea is to make sure that I’m ready for Augusta, so I got a lot of rounds to play between now and then,” he said.
“That’s what we’re building for and if I happen to play well enough to get into Doral [the WGC-Cadillac Championship], then great, I got four more rounds there. If I don’t, then I’m still trying to peak for Augusta.”
Fog delayed the Pro-Am to only nine holes.
Also joining Woods and Como was hopeful 2016 US Ryder Cup captain Fred Couples.
At the second green, Woods hit over two dozen chip shots as he seeks to find the touch that brought fear into his rivals.
Unfortunately, the rest of Woods’ game looked poor as evident at the par-5 ninth hole where he hit his second shot well right of the green and did not bother to play it from there.
“I’m caught right in between [swing] patterns,” he said, referring, as he did often last week, to his old swing under Sean Foley and his new one under Como.
“And when I have to hit shots, I got to shape shots, I’m caught right dead in between. They are so polar opposites, the movement patterns, that when I do half of one or half of the other, it’s pretty bad.”
It’s very much the same with Woods’ short game.
“The thing is that the pattern that I had with Sean is a totally different release pattern than I’m doing now, he said. “Then that affects the short game. So, my bottom point’s different. My impact points are different now. So I’ve got to find a consistent bottom, but the bottoms are different now.
“It’s a process, and Chris and I are working our tails off to try to get this. I want to get this. I want to be ready come Augusta and the rest of the majors, but we still got some work to do.”
Woods will play the opening two rounds in the company of Rickie Fowler and FedEx Cup winning hero Billy Horschel.
