DORAL, FLA. — The wind was blowing 40 kilometres an hour yesterday at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa, where the World Golf Championships' CA Championship starts Thursday.
Mike Weir was drilling shots to a practice green from 50 yards away. He then hit bunker shots, chip shots and pitch shots. It was another hard day's work for the 2003 Masters champion.
A few minutes later, Weir, the golfer Canadians focus on more than anybody, even Tiger Woods, sat down for a chat inside the clubhouse. He'd spent Monday at the Augusta National Golf Club. The Masters will start on April 10.
"I like going there and just seeing the place," Weir said. "When you get there Monday [of tournament week] and 60,000 people are there, you can say: 'Oh, I was here a few weeks ago. There's my tree that I'm aiming at.'
"When I haven't gone early, I felt I almost had to work harder, to hit putts and chips from everywhere. I was able to do a bit of that Monday, so that when I get to Augusta for the tournament, I'll do the work I need to do and get out of there."
Weir has played eight tournaments this year and missed the cut in three. Most recently, he missed the cut three weeks ago at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where he didn't hit the ball very well and missed too many short putts.
Weir, of course, has been working with swing coaches Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett on their stack-and-tilt approach. They were with Weir at Doral yesterday, as was his fitness coach, Jeff Handler.
"Mike knows why it works," Bennett said of stack and tilt. "He knows how to hit the shots. But there must be some variable that comes up when he doesn't do it on the course. I think it starts when his alignments get off."
Stack and tilt offers a technical reason for every good and every errant shot. The idea suggests a knowledgeable player should be able to hit one perfect shot after another. Weir has fallen into that trap, almost forgetting that he's a human being, not a machine.
"I've been striving for this idea that I'm going to hit it great every day," Weir said. "But thinking that way can be self-defeating and frustrating. I'm starting to come to grips with the fact that it's unattainable. You can keep working toward it, but don't expect it. If you're having a bad day hitting it, then short-game it to death."
Weir was doing that in the wind yesterday. It was as if he were saying there's far more to scoring than hitting precise shots. As Weir said, even Woods, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at the Bay Hill Club in Orlando last week and who has won five consecutive PGA Tour events, hits bad shots. Woods is in the field at Doral, where he's won the past three years.
"One of Tiger's biggest strengths is that he can score when he's hitting it bad," Weir said. "What a streak he's on. It's an interesting thing he's got going on. He believes he's going to make them [long putts, such as the 25-footer he holed on the final green to win at Bay Hill]. You hear the other guys talk, they also believe he's going to make them."
Weir has made plenty of key putts. He holed a seven-foot putt to get into a playoff with Len Mattiace in the 2003 Masters. He holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the 17th green to take a one-up lead over Woods in their singles match at the Presidents Cup at the Royal Montreal Golf Club last September. Weir won the match.
"Before I hit that putt, I said to myself, 'I know it's in,' " Weir recalled. "That's the mentality we're all working towards. If I'm able to do it under that pressure, I can do it anywhere. It's a challenge every day to get yourself in that state. But that's what Tiger does. He can get his mind in that state more often than anybody. That's more my goal now than making my swing perfect.
"That's why I spend so much time on my short game now," Weir continued, his voice rising. "I'm going to be chipping that thing in, I'm going to be wedging it close all the time. That's always been my strength. I have to get back to making that my strength."
If he does, Weir believes there's no reason he shouldn't have a strong year. Now, three weeks before the Masters, is an ideal time to start.
