Monty: 2012 do or die for Woods

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Colin Montgomerie reckons that it’s crucial for Tiger Woods to get his game back in shape by next year.

Colin Montgomerie reckons that it’s crucial for Tiger Woods to get his game back in shape by next year.

Woods, a 14-time major champion and for so long the undisputed king of the golfing world, now finds himself outside the top 50 for the first time since his career first started 15 years ago.

He’s also yet to taste victory since damaging allegations around his personal life first became public in late 2009.

Since then, his career has been a faltering, stop-start one, punctuated with frequent breaks due to personal reasons or injury.

Montgomerie, speaking to The Peninsula at Doha Golf Club recently, believes time is definitely starting to run out for the former world number one, and that 2012 might well be the decisive indicator of how much Woods still has left in him.

“I would like to see Tiger win again,” said Montgomerie. ” I think the determination of getting back (from him) is there.

“Are we saying that he’s going to walk away from the game? I don’t know, but it would be interesting to see the next year, (a) very important year. If it doesn’t happen the next year, there might be a change.”

Asked what advice he would give Woods to get him back on track, Montgomerie said: “I would just try to get him to relax. I think he’s trying too hard on the course to get it back to where it was.

“And it’s funny that the level he was, the dominating position he was in, he’s now got to get back to that level and then some because competition has improved. Like in any business, you can’t stand still. If he came back to where he was, that won’t be good enough. So, he’s got to get back and soon.

“The only way to doing that is by relaxing. I think he is trying too hard to force it. And we know that golf is a game we cannot force. We cannot make it happen, you’ve got to just let it happen.”

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