After by far his worst tournament of his career it seems as if Tiger’s game is on the verge falling off a cliff and into the most dramatic decline in the history of the sport.

While ordinarily it would be totally absurd to make such a bold assertion based on just two rounds of golf, for many reasons this situation seems very different.

First, he is not injured. Any injuries he currently has are mental and those tend to be permanent.

Second, this was his second tournament back and he has been practicing full-time for at least two months. Rust is not a valid excuse for play this bad.

Third, he has never had more incentive to play well than he did this week. He desperately needed to put the scandal behind him with a victory and with his rival Phil Mickelson breathing down his neck for the number one position in the world.

Fourth, he not only played worse than he ever has before, he flat out quit. No matter how the pathetic Golf Channel tries to spin it (incredibly, they didn’t even ask Tiger about having quit), he absolutely quit and also put his playing partners (one of whom was right on the cut line) in an uncomfortable position by costing himself a shot by not taking a proper drop on 14 and by playing 150 yards ahead of them on number 15. Tiger never quit before the scandal. Never.

Fifth, Tiger’s last major swing change was specifically designed to eliminate this kind of performance. Now, Tiger is not only no longer nearly as explosive in a positive direction, he now has no longer taken big numbers out of play. All the of the time and work of the Hank Haney era has been essentially wasted. Haney should be looking over his shoulder and holding on tight to his bodacious girlfriend who figures to leave five minutes after Tiger drops him.

Sixth, he has played poorly for five straight tournament rounds now (if you include his play in this week’s pro-am) and has scored and played progressively worse for three consecutive days.  That has never happened before in his pro career.

While it is still too soon to know for sure, it is quite possible that this scandal has scrambled the hard drive in Tiger’s brain and that the genius is now gone or at least unable to called upon when desired. His game is resembling that of the once great Seve Ballesteros who happens to be the best player ever to lose his game completely.

Like Seve, Tiger’s driving has gone from inconsistent to flat out erratic and uncontrolable. He can’t hit a fairway and is losing distance for no apparent reason (his claim that he lost distance last year due to an achilles “tear” is just plain silly and an indication that he is in denial).

Also like Seve, Tiger’s short game and short putting are still top notch, but with his long game gone it puts too much pressure on the other elements and inevitably, like they did today,  they will collapse as well.

Making matters even more daunting for Tiger is that, unlike Seve, he will have absolutely no time to turn things around or any place to hide. The stories will already start to be written that he may have lost his super powers and that he is merely just another PGA Tour player. The pressure will increase and may even become a self fulfilling prophecy, especially since his mechanics are horrible right now and he has very limited “post-scandal” success upon which to draw.

Add to all this his inevitable divorce, the crumbling of his financial empire, and the fact that crowds and maybe even the golf media will eventually turn against him and it sure seems as if this could be the start of a downward spiral the likes of which we have never seen before.

Let’s make no mistake about just how bad this was. This wasn’t just a missed cut. This was his first missed cut at a non-major since 2005. This was at a par 72 venue that he openly likes and where he has previously won. This was 16 shots worse than one of his playing partners and 17 shots worse than Monday qualifier Billy Mayfair. He hit only his six fairways. He made back to back double bogies. He shot his highest 9 hole and 36 hole scores ever as a pro. And, again, he quit.

Tiger desperately needs to turn this around immediately, but the TPC is not a place where that is likely to happen and if he misses the cut there then the floodgates of criticism will open and he will have trouble even getting enough rounds in before the U.S. Open to see if any corrections he finally makes will actually work in competition.

The most important element of all of this is Tiger’s confidence. When Seve lost his legnedary confidence he lost everything and he lost it pretty fast. Because of the unique natue of this scandal I think it is quite possible that Tiger’s confidence is perilously close to being shot and that without that there is almost nothing to keep this from getting incredibly ugly, with remarkable speed.

I almost feel sorry for the lying fraud. But not really.