In the same week he dropped outside the top 50 in the World Golf Rankings for the first time in 778 weeks, Tiger Woods makes his first appearance on the PGA Tour for nearly two months as he looks to recapture his old form ahead of the President's Cup next month.
His drop in the world rankings is a new-low for Woods, but when you look at his record in 2011, it is moderately respectable. It is just the fact he has only competed in eight events all season that is the problem.
He has made the cut in six of those tournaments, which gives him a 75% success rate. His troubles on the golf course have only been highlighted because of his failures in two events that attracted a lot of attention.
Failure under the spotlight
Woods was forced to pull out of The Players Championship in May through injury (he was also +6 halfway through his round) and he slumped to a hugely disappointing ten-over-par In the PGA Championship and ultimately missed the cut by a huge margin.
Those two discrepancies on an otherwise decent, but quiet, 2011 shouldn't mean that Woods is considered to be in free-fall, but it also shouldn't mean that the multiple-major winner will perform at his peak immediately upon his return.
What Woods needs is consecutive weeks playing competitive golf. The Tiger of old is probably still producing the goods on the driving range and the practice greens but is tournament-sharpness needs to be honed.
Key to progress will be hitting more fairways
The most noticeable factor in Woods' last round at the PGA Championship was the waywardness of his drives and his statisitcs for this year back-up that observation.
Wood currently ranks a lowly 184th in the PGA 'Driving Accuracy Percentage', after only hitting 151 out of a possible 308 fairways (49.03%).
The rest of his game seems in decent shape. He is between 30th and 70th in other areas of his game. His 'greens in regulation' is remarkably high for someone who is finding less than half of the fairways he is trying to hit.
He is also under par for Par-3 and Par-5 holes this year. However, another damning statistic is his record on Par-4's - he is currently 22-over-par for 2011.
Can Woods win in California?
Those two unwanted blemishes on an otherwise solid set of results will not improve themselves in one competition, but they can be rectified sooner rather than later if Woods commits himself in the latter part of the year.
He still has a considerable amount of ranking points to defend over the course of the next few months, and poor performances and missed cuts will lead to a further fall in the world rankings.
A Woods victory in California this week would be nothing short of remarkable given the rest of the field, which includes Ernie Els, Louis Oosthuizen and last week's winner Kevin Na, are 'tournament-sharp', but if Woods can make the cut and get inside the top-25, he should be content with the progress made as he ultimately begins the long road to reclaiming his world number one position from the dominant Luke Donald.
