Tiger Woods acknowledges he needs to play more in order to improve

Tiger Woods went with self-deprecation on Monday when asked about the state of his game in the wake of his worst 72-hole score as a professional.

"Well, I look at this way," Woods said. "It's about getting reps. I got a lot of reps this weekend."

Woods shot rounds of 85 -- his highest score as a pro -- and 74 at the Memorial Tournament this weekend, and completed 72 holes in last place with 302 strokes.

Speaking via satellite as part of the Quicken Loans National tournament media day, Woods acknowledged that his lack of tournament golf has hindered him as he attempts again to make significant changes in his golf swing.

"[Caddie] Joey [LaCava] keeps telling me, this past week, he kept reminding me, 'Man, take it easy on yourself, you haven't played that much golf,"' Woods said. "'You never played last year, and you haven't played that much this year. You've been playing at home, but you haven't played tournament golf. Just take it easy, it'll come around. Tournament golf takes time.'

"I hate to say it when he's right because as a player you always want to be right, but he's right."

Woods has played just five times this year, his best finish a tie for 17th at the Masters. He has withdrawn once, missed one cut and then had poor weekends at his past two events.

He dropped to 181st on Monday in the Official World Golf Ranking and his average ranking points is the lowest it has been since October 1996 -- the same week his captured his first PGA Tour title in Las Vegas.

Woods said he has tried to implement more of the swing changes since the Masters with Chris Como, the instructor he began working with in November.

"You just don't go from 1 to 10," he said. "We're taking it 1, 2, 3, 4, all the way to 10, taking it step by step, and making baseline shifts, that's what Chris and I were just calling it. You can call it anything, progression, baseline shifts, you can come up with any terms you want, but what it is that I'm taking it step by step above the game plan we have, and we have formulated for me to get better and get back to where I want to be in the game of golf."

Woods has undergone numerous swing changes in his 79-win career and has often been criticized for it. After winning the 1997 Masters by 12 shots, he and instructor Butch Harmon worked to tighten his swing. He won just once in 1998 but then went on a run where he won seven of 11 majors through the 2002 U.S. Open. He left Harmon later that year.

Under Hank Haney from 2004 to 2010, Woods won 31 PGA Tour titles, including six majors, but had a bleak 2004 until he got comfortable. In 2010, Woods went to Sean Foley, and didn't win until late in 2011. He was PGA Tour player of the year in 2013 and won nine times total working with Foley.

"I've had times like this in my life where I've gone through these periods, but you just have to fight through it," Woods said. "I'm committed to what I'm doing and committed to the changes, and once I start to snowball and start getting more solidified, then that's when things start coming together."

Woods said he would resume practicing for next week's U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, where he spent two days last week.

After that, he plays every other week through the PGA Championship, including the Quicken Loans event, which benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation. That tournament is July 30-Aug. 2 at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va.

The following week is the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational -- a tournament for which he is not eligible due to his low world ranking. He is also 196th in FedEx Cup points and would need to move into the top 125 to be eligible for the first FedEx Cup playoff event, which is two weeks after the PGA.

"I am playing more. I'm finally healthy enough to do it," Woods said. "My back is good enough to do it, so I'm fully committed to playing more golf all this summer. Now I just need to get my ranking up high enough so I can get into some of these events and continue playing. It's kind of funny to think about that. I think I've won at Firestone eight times and I'm not in the event. I need to obviously start playing a little bit better to get into that event and then to get into the playoffs. That's not guaranteed.

"I've got a lot of work ahead of me, and I'm looking forward to it."