JOHNS CREEK -- The kid standing behind 15-year-old Tiger Woods on the tee at Torrey Pines was two years older and already a hotshot himself on Southern Californias rough-and-tumble amateur golf circuit the first time he saw the look. Cyber Monday Jerseys Deals . Chris Riley had played the skinny teenager with the growing reputation a dozen times before. This time, he was 2-up with seven holes to play in the prestigious Junior World Championship. "We were at No. 12, a long par 4 and Id already hit mine 260 yards. He smoked his 310, straight down the middle, then turned around and shot me this little smile. He was just fearless," Riley recalled some 20 years later. "He already knew he had me." Riley first met Woods when he was 10. He beat him to the pro tour in 1996 by a few months. Soon enough, though, every other player on the PGA Tour knew exactly what that look meant. Mired in the second year of the deepest slump of his career, Woods didnt scare anyone at last weeks PGA Championship. He looked lost, not fearless. Not many superstars in the world of sports and entertainment have fallen so far so fast. Woods was knocked off his throne by a self-inflicted sex scandal that erupted at Thanksgiving in 2009 and cost him his marriage. He was quickly -- and unceremoniously -- dumped by sponsors and humiliated by the same TV shows and newspapers that once begged for interviews. Woods went into exile, finally returning to golf in April 2010 at the Masters with a fourth-place finish. He has been steadily losing ground in the golf rankings ever since. Some believe he will never be that indomitable player again; others, including a few who know Woods better, say its crazy to count him out. "Hes always been the best. His dad drilled that into him," Riley said, "But this has got to be the lowest point of his career. Nobody has ever seen him do the stuff hes doing now. It hurts to see it. Honestly, I dont know that hes ever had to struggle. "But I guarantee you this: Hell be back on top. And when he is," Riley paused, "its going to be that much sweeter." Speculation about Woods erratic play the past two seasons zeroed in on his psyche initially. From there, the blame shifted onto his work-in-progress swing and then the very real problem with his legs. "He was the most mentally and emotionally tough athlete of all time, so heres the question Im interested in," said sports psychologist Gregg Steinberg, who was a swing instructor earlier in his career. "Why did Tiger play last week if any or all of those problems were bothering him, or if -- as the results suggest -- he knew he wasnt ready? "Maybe he thought he could catch lightning in a bottle. Thats one guess. The other would be he wanted to measure himself. ... The secret to being great is self-awareness and so whether that was his intention or not," Steinberg added, "he definitely knows now that he needs a good butt-kicking." Last week marked only the third time Woods missed the cut in a major as a professional. It happened at the 2006 U.S. Open -- shortly after the death of his father, Earl -- and the British Open two years ago. More troubling still might have been Woods demeanour over his final few holes. As shots veered left or right of the fairway, and occasionally into a bunker, pond or the Georgia pines lining both sides, Woods tracked their flight with a deflated expression or simply dropped his head into his chest. Absent were the trademark temper tantrums and even a hint of the joyful explosions that once rocketed Woods up the leaderboard at every one of the games biggest events. "Golf is as much art as it is technical, and thats where his genius was. He always had this spirit, this belief he could find a way to do anything he could dream up," said Rudy Duran, who began tutoring Tiger at age four, about the time Earl Woods had exhausted his own teaching repertoire. "I ran into him one afternoon at Heartwell (Golf Course in Long Beach, California, an 18-hole executive course that became Woods playground) and he was standing in a bunker surrounded by 50 balls. Tiger was around 8 at the time. He was trying to hit one out and make it spin left on landing, then make the next one go right, the next one straight and so on. "I only watched a few of his shots this weekend, but I dont think hes broken," he added. "And only someone who doesnt know a thing about golf would think hes done." Duran handed Woods off to another teacher by age 10, and noted that rather than working on swing technique, his lessons consisted largely of simple tips designed to let the youngster have more fun. "Id say, Try this to make the ball go higher, this to keep it low. Believe me, I wasnt grooming him to became the best player in the world, but I never came close to exhausting his imagination. I dont know enough to guess where his game is, but Ill say this: Hes not walking a tightrope between success and failure. Thats just silly. "He hasnt forgotten how to play. And once he gets a swing hes comfortable with," Duran said finally, "who knows what hes still capable of?" Most of golfs greatest champions collected their majors over 8-10 years and crested the hill by their mid to late 30s. Bobby Jones retired at 28. Tom Watson and Byron Nelson never won another after 33, Arnold Palmer, 34, and Walter Hagen, 36. Gary Player won only one of his nine after 38 and Nick Faldo his last at 39. Ben Hogan was an anomaly, finding his "secret" after a car crash nearly killed him and winning into his early 40s. Jack Nicklaus, whose 18 career majors was the benchmark Woods set himself as a youngster, won all but one of his over an 18-year span; and that last one, the 1986 Masters at age 46, was what people mean when they use the phrase, "catching lightning in a bottle." Woods turned 35 last December and collected his 14 majors between the 1997 Masters and 2008 U.S. Open, where he won effectively playing on a broken left leg. Hes now had four surgeries on that leg and arrived at the PGA Championship after a two-month layoff to rehab the bad wheel -- and a year into his latest swing overhaul with Burlington, Ont., native Sean Foley, the third coach he hired since turning pro. "If he works at it, hell get his game back. Hell either figure out how to put it together or go in a different direction," said Hank Haney, who coached Woods the half-dozen years between Butch Harmon, his first pro coach, and Foley. "Criticizing the method any of us used, frankly, is irrelevant. This guy has so much talent, he can learn to make almost any swing work. And if it doesnt work, well, thats just temporary. Like I said, hes not afraid to go in a different direction. ... "In my mind, what happened this weekend raises two questions: Will his body hold up so he can practice enough to make this swing work? And if his body can take the work, does he still have the passion to plow in all the practice it will take to make it work?" Haney said he and Woods were in touch, either in person or on the phone, some 200 days a year. In the past, after a performance such as this one, he might not have heard from Woods for a week. "If he missed a cut, hed be so mad, he was probably back practising somewhere that Sunday," Haney said. "The problem now is the longer he slides, the tougher it becomes climbing back up the mountain. And now, hes already got a long one ahead of him." Woods has been erratic off the tee since he first picked up a club. Thats why Harmon, and then Haney, provided safe shots he could use to consistently hit the fairways on narrow holes or when a tournament was on the line. With the driver, Woods mastered a cut that moved the ball predictably left to right with a suitable margin for error. On shorter holes, he hit a 3-wood "stinger," a low, boring shot that flew dead straight and rolled out with enough distance to keep him competitive. Since working with Foley, Woods acknowledged he has yet to develop even one consistent bailout shot from the tee box. That has increased the pressure on every part of his game. "Now," Woods said before leaving the Atlanta Athletic Club, "Ill have nothing to do but work on my game." cheap jerseys from china . The bogeys on the closing hole at TPC Four Seasons havent cost him the lead yet. Bradley overcame consecutive bogeys early and bogeyed No. 18 for the third round in a row Saturday to finish with a 2-under 68 that kept him in the lead. Cheap MLB Jerseys Cyber Monday . -- Their team back together again, Canada looked comfortable at the womens world curling championship as they closed in on a playoff spot. http://www.orgcheapjerseys.com/ . Joakim Andersson and Luke Glendening also scored for Detroit. Pavel Datsyuk had two assists and Jimmy Howard made 17 saves. Nazem Kadri and Joffrey Lupul scored for Toronto. Jake Gardiner had two assists and Jonathan Bernier stopped 32 shots. jerseys from china . -- Second-ranked Western kept its undefeated season in tact by using its dominant ground game to run past No. cheap jerseys from china . Joffrey Lupuls status is now the biggest question mark surrounding the club as the Maple Leafs continue the push for their first playoff berth since 2004. CINCINNATI, Ohio -- Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones was found not guilty on Tuesday of an assault charge accusing him of punching a woman in the head at a nightclub. A visiting judge in Hamilton County Municipal Court heard the case after Jones, who has had a spate of legal troubles, waived a jury trial. Jones could have been sentenced to up to six months in jail if convicted. Jones was accused of hitting Shannon Wesley outside a downtown Cincinnati nightclub and was arrested in June. He had pleaded not guilty and been released on his own recognizance. The judge heard more than two hours of testimony from Wesley on Tuesday. Wesley said Jones punched her in the head with a closed fist, knocking her to the ground. But she also said the punch came after she poured beer on Jones arm in an attempt to get him to leave her and her friends alone. Wesley said Jones was aggressive and called her and the other women names preceded by adjectives including "sloppy" and "fat." "We were scared," she said. The judge said in delivering his ruling that surveillance video of the bars patio showed the beer bottle pointing toward Jones face, near his eye. "The initiaal aggressor in this case was Shannon Wesley with the beer bottle," Judge Robert Taylor said. cheap jerseys from china. Witnesses testified there was cursing from both sides, and the judge noted a lack of civility from those involved, including Jones. Jones attorney repeatedly argued that Wesley physically assaulted Jones. "This man was only defending himself when he was threatened," attorney Ralph Kohnen said. But prosecutor Bernadette Longano argued that there was "zero evidence" that Wesley harmed or attempted to harm Jones. Jones and his attorney declined to comment after Tuesdays ruling. The prosecutor also declined to comment. Jones, the Bengals third cornerback and a punt returner, still could face discipline from the National Football League under its conduct policy. A message left with the NFL on Tuesday wasnt immediately returned. Last month, Jones paid a fine for disorderly conduct after police accused him of making offensive comments in a traffic stop. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge of disorderly conduct after he was arrested in 2011 in another case. He was accused in that case of shouting profanities and trying to pull away as police arrested him at a bar. ' ' '