UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. -- Coming off his worst round and 72-hole performance as a pro, Tiger Woods is faced with trying to take the long view regarding changes to his game while attempting to compete in the short term.
There is no bigger stage than the U.S. Open, which Woods has won three times but which he arrives at this year as the 195th-ranked player in the world and with so many questions about his game.
"Sometimes you have to make a shift, and I did," Woods said Tuesday following a nine-hole practice round at Chambers Bay, where the 115th U.S. Open begins on Thursday. "Short-term suffering for long-term gain. I've done this before. When I've made changes in the past, I've struggled through it. I've come out on the good side.
"I had to make those. It's more of a commitment than anything else. I had to make a commitment and I have. And things are starting to come together piece by piece. All the big change is already in and now it's just refining it and actually now playing more golf, playing more tournament golf."
Woods shot a third-round 85 at the Memorial two weeks ago and finished the tournament at 302, 14 over par -- his worst 72-hole score.
He acknowledged that the changes he's making to his swing under Chris Como would lead to some setbacks, and pointed to his past history of changes under Butch Harmon, Hank Haney and Sean Foley. In each case, Woods needed approximately a year; he's a little more than six months in -- with injuries factored in -- with Como.
Woods has not finished among the top 10 since late 2013 and has no finish in 2015 better than his tie for 17th at the Masters.
That has led to suggestions that Woods, who turns 40 in December, no longer has the drive to succeed that he did while getting to 79 PGA Tour victories and 14 major championships.
"I wouldn't have made the changes if I wasn't devoted to the game of golf and winning golf tournaments," he said. "I want to be out here. I want to play. I want to compete, and I want to win. And to me it's so much fun having a chance to win on the back nine on Sunday. There's plenty of times where I haven't gotten it done. But there are also times when I have gotten it done. But you've got to be there. And that's one of the reasons why over the course of my career I've made a few changes here and there in search of becoming a little more consistent to put myself there more often.
"And we're doing that. This year certainly has been a struggle. But for me to go through what I went through at Torrey [withdrawal] and Phoenix [missed cut], to come back and do what I did at Augusta gave me a lot of confidence going forward."
Woods has played just twice since the Masters, tying for 69th at The Players Championship and then finishing 71st and last at the Memorial.
He has shown an inability to bring his game from practice to the tournament, but in practice at Chambers Bay this week the results have been mostly positive. Woods has played three nine-hole practice rounds since Sunday after he spent two days here two weeks ago.
"If he could get on the fairway, he'd probably be back to where he was," said Jason Day, who played with Woods on Monday and the first two rounds at the Memorial. "His iron play is just ridiculous how good it is right now. It's really special.
"The driver and the 3-wood ... the 3-wood is OK, the driver gets a little wide sometimes. But I think that's the biggest thing for me right now is [for Tiger] to really kind of get on the fairway."
Woods is playing in the U.S. Open for the 19th time, his last victory coming in 2008 at Torrey Pines.
He acknowledged that getting in plenty of preparation at Chambers Bay is key.
"There's so many different ways you can play it," he said. "One of the more dramatic things I've noticed is how different it plays from morning to afternoon. It gets so much faster and drier. You just feel it as the day wears on how much this golf course can dry out, and it certainly will."
To that end, after playing morning practice rounds on Monday and Tuesday, Woods is expected to play Wednesday afternoon. His first-round tee time Thursday with Rickie Fowler and Louis Oosthuizen is at 5:28 p.m. ET.
