Tiger and most of golf's best players will be in Orlando this week for Arnold Palmer's annual Bay Hill tournament. Tiger might win by four shots, as he did last year. But he might remain off his stride, which wouldn't be a bad thing. Sure, the networks, along with Tiger's international legion of followers, want to see him contending in every tournament he enters, and winning a majority of them. But the laws of golf usually dictate otherwise, and for the overall good of the game in general we should hope those laws are upheld.
Golf is very, very difficult.
It makes you long for the days when Arnold Palmer was king but had the decency to make golf look like hard work. All it takes from Tiger is a few more missed putts, which have haunted him recently. And combine that jumpy putter with a few more misguided irons, as happened late last Sunday in Dubai, where he actually blew a final-round lead. AWOL putting strokes have turned many a great golfer into a commentator or pro-shop clerk. It's a delicate craft, requiring exact execution time after time after time.