Tiger struggles with new patterns at Torrey Pines

LA JOLLA, California: Tiger Woods returns to Torrey Pines, where he has won eight times including his most recent major title, still struggling to recover his touch after the worst round of his professional career.
Woods practiced Wednesday on the eve of the opening round of the PGA Farmers Insurance Open on the same course where he captured his 14th major crown at the 2008 US Open.
But the former world number one has fallen to 56th in the world rankings, in danger of failing to qualify for a World Golf Championships event for only the second time in his career, and he’s a 50-1 longshot with Vegas oddsmakers in the wake of an 82 last Friday to miss the cut at the Phoenix Open.
“I was in the back yard chipping a lot, hitting plenty of golf balls, analyzing it,” Woods said of his weekend after he skipped the Super Bowl to work on his game with advisor Chris Como.
“My good is really good. Unfortunately my bad is really bad.”
Woods has looked uncomfortable with his swing and unhappy with his short game and spoke Wednesday of trying to put his game into proper shape in time for the Masters in April more than making a run at another Torrey Pines title.
Como’s changes to Woods’ game, based on his swing styles from younger days, run at odds with those of previous Woods coaches Sean Foley and Hank Haney.
As Woods tries to reconcile the differences, establishing new patterns has come as hard as managing his once-mighty chipping game.
“The patterns are polar opposites,” Woods said. “That’s just like it was when I first started working with Sean versus Hank. They are completely different release patterns. I went through the same exact phase that I’m going through right now.
“It’s just battling, trying to find it, at the same time trying to get feel and develop new patterns. When you’re under the gun, you got to hit a shot, you just get so target oriented that sometimes old patterns come out.
“I know what the fix is, but can I save it during the swing itself.”
The humbling failure of a player who dominated the game 15 years ago has prompted plenty of comments about what Woods needs to do to restore some semblance of the form that gave him 79 career PGA titles, three shy of Sam Snead’s all-time record, and put him within reach of Jack Nicklaus’ landmark of 18 major wins.
Part of the problem has been the nagging back injury that ruined Woods’ 2014 campaign after he won five times in 2013.