{"id":168,"date":"2011-08-08T17:41:38","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T17:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddesmith.com\/?p=168"},"modified":"2011-08-08T17:41:38","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T17:41:38","slug":"tiger-woods-walks-softly-but-his-new-kicks-let-him-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/golf\/equipment\/168\/tiger-woods-walks-softly-but-his-new-kicks-let-him-down","title":{"rendered":"Tiger Woods Walks Softly, But His New Kicks Let Him Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You knew he wasn\u2019t going to return with a bang.\u00a0 That was just never in the cards, no matter how much you idolize the Great Strip\u00e8d One.\u00a0 After all those weeks off, after fleeing the TPC in May with a 41 on his front-nine score card, after unceremoniously dumping 13-year caddy Steve Williams \u2013 not to mention all his off-course shenanigans, Tiger and his broken-down body were just not destined to be a factor in the WGC event at Firestone this past week.\u00a0 Even if the knee and Achilles were 100%, you just knew his driving and putting wouldn\u2019t be.\u00a0 And they certainly weren\u2019t.\u00a0 Tiger drove the ball like a man behind the wheel of a runaway SUV, and missed putts he\u2019s never missed before, signaling that his era of dominance may truly be over.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t make two-footers \u2013 much less ten-footers \u2013 you won\u2019t be kissing trophies anytime soon.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_169\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/08\/Tiger_Woods_New_Shoes_Firestone_Golf_Tournament_Nike_Free_Shoes1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-169\" src=\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/08\/Tiger_Woods_New_Shoes_Firestone_Golf_Tournament_Nike_Free_Shoes1-300x166.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"166\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-169\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tiger&#039;s prototype NIKE FREE golf shoes.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Tiger did earn some attention for his new choice of footwear, though.\u00a0 His NIKE FREE-inspired prototype shoes would\u2019ve been selling by the thousands today if he\u2019d contended.\u00a0 As it is, though, you have to wonder how much better he might\u2019ve played in his old-technology TWs.<\/p>\n<p>According to a Nike press paper, Tiger\u2019s new shoe was originally created back in 2004 at Nike\u2019s test kitchen, all-too-cutely called \u201cThe Oven.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nike\u2019s Tobie Hatfield described them as follows: \u201cNIKE FREE is a \u2018natural motion\u2019 technology that is designed to mimic and conform to the natural motion of the foot, coupled with the protection and traction of a lightweight performance shoe\u2026 The FREE-inspired elements in this prototype model allow greater movement for the front of the foot, increasing stability with mobility.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will help give Tiger greater stability as he addresses the ball.\u00a0 The freedom of movement that natural motion technology delivers will also allow more power to be released through the swing rather than through the body, which can happen when your feet are too static.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That all sounds fine and good, but what Nike apparently forgot to include in Tiger\u2019s new shoe design was any kind of decent Foot-Wedge\u2122 technology \u2013 something that their marquee player could\u2019ve used this past weekend at Firestone.\u00a0 Woods drove the ball all over creation and until a late Sunday surge looked nothing like the world-beater he once was.\u00a0 At least the shoes, presumably, were free.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, Woods also returned to action sporting a healthy cushion of newly coiffed facial hair, too \u2013 something that should come in handy if he keeps taking it on the chin as badly as he did in Akron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You knew he wasn\u2019t going to return with a bang.\u00a0 That was just never in the cards, no matter how&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/golf\/equipment\/168\/tiger-woods-walks-softly-but-his-new-kicks-let-him-down\" title=\"ReadTiger Woods Walks Softly, But His New Kicks Let Him Down\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,7],"tags":[53,104457,104458,342,417,104461,104462],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-equipment","category-personalities","tag-tiger-woods","tag-wgc","tag-nike-free","tag-nike","tag-golf-shoes","tag-steve-williams","tag-toby-hatfield"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/08\/Tiger_Woods_New_Shoes_Firestone_Golf_Tournament_Nike_Free_Shoes1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}