How to Beat Tiger Woods - Bring him to Stromberg

Grouchy Golf Blog has got it right. The way to beat Tiger is to put him on shorter courses. Current stats show Tiger at Nr. 2 in long driving among the pros, so the longer the courses, the more that is to his advantage.

I myself am a very long hitter averaging about 300 yards a drive on my good days at other courses, but, unfortunately, I play on a home course - Stromberg Schindeldorf in Germany - with probably the narrowest fairways in the entire golf world.

Making things even more difficult, we have 8 par three holes (most about 170 to 210 yards) with brilliantly placed very hard to play bunkers around tiny greens, 4 par fives that can all theortically be reached in two but which are designed in such a manner that well-placed long drives almost always land in the trees, and 6 par fours where driving long can put the player into all sorts of difficulty, if the drive does not hit the trees getting there first. The course consists almost entirely of fairway, trees and uncut grass, and a level lie is a rarity, since the course winds around on the side of a hill and because many of the fairways were left as slanted as they were found. Hence, any errant shot, i.e. off the fairway, generally costs two strokes or more. Numerous holes have out of bounds or hazards directly behind or to the side of the green, making long hitting dangerous. The course has to be played to be believed.

In addition, when the greens are properly prepared, they are as fast as Augusta. To my knowledge, no one has ever beaten the course par of 68 in an official tournament, although a pro recently is alleged to have shot a 67 in a friendly round, under benign conditions. Our former greenkeeper, a superb player, never broke par while he was at Stromberg, even though he could read the greens perfectly, and even good players are known to exceed their handicap by 20 strokes at Stromberg when they first confront this deceivingly "short" and "simple" course.

As one Stanford grad to another, Tiger is always welcome for a challenge round at Stromberg. Just for fun. On paper, he should shoot a 59. In reality, he might not break 80.
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