Tiger Buckles Under Pressure Once Again

Even as Tiger Woods lined up what would be his final putt at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship, I turned to my dog and said "Check this out buddy, Tiger's gonna miss this putt." Not only did my dog not care about Tiger's inevitable missed birdie effort from six feet, he much rather preferred to make a mess on my flooring as consolation. As much as I would hate to admit, I don't blame the dog.

There were a few people who feigned astonishment at Woods' missed putt, but nobody was really fooling anybody else. We all basically knew Tiger would miss, didn't we? Hasn't it really come to that at this point in his career? Doesn't it all make sense now in what has become the script of this comedic tragedy?

CBS Sports' Shane Bacon put it quite nicely in his summary of Tiger's loss to Watney:

There was a stunned silence in the golf world when Tiger Woods, standing over a six-footer on the 18th hole to extend his match to extra holes against Nick Watney slide past the right lip, but it wasn't as much a shocked silence as it was understandable disappointment.

Despite falling behind 2 holes to his opponent by the 14th hole, Woods had plenty of opportunity to square things up with Watney (especially when Watney hit his tee-shot onto the ramp of a nearby tent), yet we all pretty much understood how this match would play out. Tiger would teeter on the cusp of opportunity, yet ultimately fall to the wayside when all was said and done.

There is no doubt that Tiger is playing better than he was a few months ago. I would also still wager that he wins another major at some point in his career. But at this point, that may be more surprising than what we witnessed today.