Tiger Woods responds to the Nick Faldo comments that he’s struggling mentally

It is almost tradition these days in golf to question whatever is wrong with Tiger Woods when he has just one or two bad tournaments in a row. Despite the four PGA Tour wins this season, Woods played poorly at the Memorial, finishing T-65, and followed that up with a T-32 at the U.S. Open, making it more than five years since he’s won a major championship.

Woods is still atop the FedEx Cup rankings this season and has double the PGA Tour wins of the closest guy, but Nick Faldo told the Daily Mail that he thought Woods was really struggling between the ears when he gets on the golf course.

“I think Tiger’s woken up and realized this is a hard sport and he is a mere mortal after all.” Faldo said. “He’s not in a good mental place.”

Woods held a press conference at the AT&T National event this week despite not playing because of a strained elbow that he suffered at Merion, and was asked about what Faldo said when he met with the media.

“I don’t know, I’ve won four times,” Woods said with that blank stare of his. Followed up with a, “Do you feel like you’re struggling mentally,” Woods simply answered, “No,” and moved on.

We spend a lot of time in the media picking apart Tiger’s golf game, but his answer is pretty accurate. He has four wins, and seven over the last 15 months. Maybe the only thing wrong with Tiger Woods is that we still look at him as the guy from 2001, and not the guy from 2013. He isn’t going to win four majors in a row right now, partly because his golf game isn’t as incredibly solid as it was back then and partly because the fields are just too good.

Four wins is still an impressive number, and would be a highlight to most anybody else that plays the game at a professional level.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
• Watch: Tiger Woods talks about his elbow injury
• Rory McIlroy’s struggles continue
• Jason Day ready for another strong test

Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo! Sports