Brendan Steele, PGA Rookie, Criticizes Tiger Woods' Effort at Torrey Pines

February 1 2011 Last updated at 03:30 PM ET

Tiger Woods' competitive edge and determination have almost never come into question, until now. PGA Tour rookie Brendan Steele told Sports Illustrated he thought Woods didn't give his best effort in the final round at Torrey Pines.

"I don't think he gave it everything today," Steele said on Sunday after being paired with Woods for the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open. "Once it started going in the wrong direction, I don't think it had his full attention."

Woods started off well at Torrey Pines -- a venue he's had much success at -- carding back-to-back 69s in the first two rounds to head into the weekend just back of contention at 6 under. But his putts again weren't falling and he wasn't able to align all the aspects of his game to ride the bogey-free first-round momentum through Friday and into the weekend.

In the final two rounds, he logged just four total birdies compared to nine bogeys to shoot 74, 75 and finish the tournament T44, 15 strokes back of tournament winner Bubba Watson. The poor results continue a major slump for Woods and mark his worst season debut since his first full season on the PGA Tour in 1997.

While effort and results are not necessarily a direct correlation in golf, a look at the final-round numbers proves the drop in performance Steele suggests. Woods was dismal from the tee-box, finishing the round at 64th in driving accuracy and averaging a mediocre 278.5 yards-per drive. His approach game struggled and his putting game continued to hold him back as he needed 32 putts to escape Sunday, just under two putts per green.

But since returning to the game after his well-documented mishaps off the course, Woods' new motto has been to look forward, not back, and he knows he can't let his focus linger on his poor round Sunday if he wants to rebound at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic next week.

"As the round went on, I progressively got worse with my golf swing," he said. "I hit a lot of good shots early in the week, and then it progressively got worse. So I have a week to get ready and got a lot of work to do."

Source: http://golf.fanhouse.com/2011/02/01/tiger-woods-brendan-steele-torrey-pines-pga-tour-rookie/

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