Tiger Woods will have Monster 2008 Season

According to CNNSI, Tiger will be better in '08

According to Gary Van Sickle of CNNSI, Tiger Woods will have a monster season in 2008. Here is what he says about Tiger,

1. Tiger Woods. Thanks for pretending to be surprised. Tiger has been the one player you can't stop watching for more than a decade, and the end is still not in sight. Despite a shaky driver and an evolving swing, he marched into 2007 with a winning streak that he pushed to seven tournaments before falling to Nick O'Hern in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. Not only that, he was a runner-up at the Masters and the U.S. Open. Just how off his game he felt was epitomized by the eighth hole Sunday at Augusta. He wasn't confident enough to hit driver off the tee on a par-5 that he, among only a few, had the length to reach in two. Ultimately, he scrambled to save par, looking very un-Tiger-like.

Woods found his swing in late summer, and he finished the year by winning the PGA Championship and the FedEx Cup. His golf swing may not be quite as beautiful as his 2001 textbook model, but it may, in fact, be better. Woods has never looked more unstoppable, if that's possible, and it seems likely that he'll run the tables again in '08.

2. The Grand Slam. (Or Tiger, Part II.) Woods hasn't had a major lineup this promising since the 2000 menu of Pebble Beach, St. Andrews and Valhalla. The '08 lineup features the first U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he has won five PGA Tour events and has had four other top-five finishes; Royal Birkdale, where he made a run at buddy Mark O'Meara in the '98 British Open and settled for third; and Oakland Hills, where, as an amateur, he was leading the '96 Open in the first round before fading at the finish thanks to a quadruple bogey at No. 16.

Tiger has already proven that winning four majors in a row is possible. He'd make it five in a row if he pulled it off, on the heels of his PGA win in Tulsa last August. The Masters has become more difficult to win since the Hootie Johnson tree-planting and lengthening campaign, as shown by the firm and fast conditions of '07. Still, Woods nearly won despite playing at less than his best. On the other hand, don't concede the U.S. Open to him just because of his Buick Invitational dominance at Torrey Pines. The Buick has never had anything close to U.S. Open rough. It'll be a different course with the USGA in charge. Plus, Tiger won't get that automatic low round at Torrey's North Course, which is used for one round in the PGA Tour event. Oh, I'd still pick him for the Open — it just isn't a gimme. Can he get the Slam? Yes. Will he? I'll go conservative and say he wins three out of four.

I hope he's right, Tiger will do us all proud...