Tiger Woods debuts his 2019 competitive schedule this week at the Farmers Insurance Open and does so by ‘tackling’ the new rules of golf, you know, dropping from the knee, kicking with the possibility of leaving the flag set in the hole….
The former number one, who in September won his 80th US PGA Tour victory at the Tour Championship after five years since his previous triumph, has been preparing for these new regulations. He has not given any importance to the dropping from knee height nor has he dedicated any of his precious time to it, but he has been practicing -in his backyard- to kick with the flag on.
“On some of the longer putts I liked to have my caddie as a reference point, so the flag will stay on,” Woods said.” “On some of the putts where the hole is dimly visible, it would also be nice to have a reference point. So I’ll probably leave it for those types of putts.
In this, Woods seems to agree with most players opting to keep the flag on longer putts but extracting it from the hole for putts of less than seven meters. There are some of your colleagues like Bryson DeChambeau and Adam Scott who have committed to hitting almost every putt with the flag on.
“It might be more advantageous when there are faster greens, with more drop, like for example at Augusta, to have that feeling of security on a one-meter downhill shot, by being able to (the mast) stop the ball,” he said.
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