THE RECENT FLAME-OUT of Mike Weir has been tough to watch. In his last 10 events on the PGA Tour dating back to last year's U.S. Open, the 2003 Masters champion has missed the cut seven times, has posted just three rounds in the 60s and in 20 of his 29 rounds, he has failed to even shoot par.
After shutting his season down in late August last year, he began 2011 playing on a medical exemption that meant he needed to earn $164,236 in five tournaments -- the difference between his total and number 125 on the money list last year -- to keep his fully exempt status.
The events he chose to play -- thus far the Bob Hope Classic, Farmers Insurance Open, AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and Northern Trust Open -- were cherry-picked events, as he had some level of success on each course.
He won the Hope once and had two other top-5s; he hadn't played Torrey Pines a whole lot, but he did turn in a T18 at the '08 U.S. Open; he hasn't broken through to win at Pebble Beach yet, but he's finished in the top-five five times and also has a T14; and at Riviera, well he won back-to-back in '03 and '04.
It's all very much a far cry from that magical 2003 season. Of course, he became the first Canadian to win a major championship when he defeated Len Mattiace in playoff at The Masters, but that was far from his only highlight.
In 21 starts he won three times -- the Masters, the Hope and at Riviera -- had 10 top-10s, 16 top-25s, was cut only once, had just two finishes outside the top 28 and his results in the majors were win, T3, T28, T7.
That's a pretty good year -- by anyone's standards. And yet, we always seem to circle back to just that one weekend in April.
The point of this is not to belittle Weir's efforts or dump on his future prospects. In fact, it's quite the contrary.
If this past weekend taught us anything -- with Aaron Baddeley holding off Vijay Singh to win the Northern Trust Open -- it's that talent can endure.
Sure, Weir hasn't won since 2007 and is still feeling the effects of switching to the stack and tilt swing and then reversing course.
Kinda like Baddeley.
And Weir is on the wrong side of 40 and is probably suffering from a severe lack of confidence right about now, but Singh may have been in a worse position.
In 2004 Singh had one of greatest year's in the history of the PGA Tour -- nine wins (including the PGA Championship), two seconds, one third, 18 top-10s, 24 top-25s and he made the cut in 28 of 29 events -- but even he wasn't immune to a slide later in his career.
After winning the Fed Ex Cup in 2008, Singh has struggled -- his best finish in 2009 was a T6 and in 2010 it was a T4 -- and wowhere was this more evident than on the greens. He ranked 167th in putting in '09 and 159th in '10. So far this year, he's 30th and, of course, he already has a second and third place finish.
It's not all that surprising though, his average of 29.88 puts per round in 2009 is nearly a stroke and a half more than his 28.44 average now -- that's nearly six shots a tournament.
Like Weir, Singh has suffered through some elbow injuries in recent years.
The point I'm getting at is that if Baddeley can come back from the swing changes to win on Tour, so can Weir.
And if Singh can come back from poor play, injuries and a body overall that's not as forgiving, so can Weir.
He just has too much talent to fade into obscurity.
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