More Tiger

My Tiger drumbeating goes on. Here’s what I had to say about the 2000 PGA Championship and the Tournament of Champions:.

Tiger shot a 67 in the second round when he was paired with Jack Nicklaus. The round was memorable because it was here that the torch was passed.  Jack needed an eagle on the last hole to make the cut.  He narrowly missed doing just that with a sand wedge.  It was a scene worth saving.  Tiger made a long putt for his birdie and Jack gave him a thumbs up.  Then Jack stroked in his short birdie putt and Tiger smiled in satisfaction.  The mutual admiration between them was obvious.  It incenses me when I hear some of my fellow retirees complain that he’s too cocky and that the media gives him too much attention.  First, he strikes me as one of the least cocky 24-year-olds I’ve ever seen, especially one that has so much to be rightfully cocky about.  He’s extremely well-spoken in all his interviews.  He’s gracious to his fellow competitors.  I think he’s probably won over nearly everyone he plays with and against on tour.  They no long resent his skills.  They just stand back, like Ernie Els, and shake their heads in wonder, tiny smiles on their faces.  One of the commentators on Friday said we’re witnessing a miracle.  And personally, I’m thankful the cameras spend so much time following his rounds.  Personally, I’m thankful I’m living in this time to watch this golfing prodigy, this athletic miracle. He just keeps playing such careful golf, knocking his drives so far he has much shorter clubs into greens, taking his birdies wherever he can, making few mistakes.  His short game is so good that even when he misses an occasional green, he gets it up and down.  His competitors must just go crazy waiting for him to make a mistake and he doesn’t make mistakes.  A year ago I thought if anything shortened his career it would be a back or spine injury, because of the velocity of his full swing.  Now I’m beginning to think it could be boredom.  What if he conquered all the golf worlds and no challengers ever showed up?  Maybe he’d turn to some other sport, like basketball, or baseball, sort of a reverse Michael Jordan.  Couldn’t you just see him hitting balls over the leftfield fences, crunching the ball and then staring it down, striving to hit it farther and farther afield, maybe even aiming for nothing but centerfields to keep from growing bored with baseball too.

In the third round he did exactly as he’s been doing in all the majors, coasting along, making birdies on all the par fives, making no mistakes, letting the others in the field try to catch him.  And I no more than said that when he double bogeyed the twelfth with a bad chip and an even worse 3-putt and Dunlap birdied to tie, a three stroke swing.  I remember reading a science fiction story years and years ago about a young man born with supernatural skills that no one ever knew about.  He was pitching for a major league team and at a very crucial time in a very crucial game, he threw a deliberate strike in the sweet spot just so the batter could hit a homerun, just to keep his boredom at bay, to sort of even up the field.  Maybe that was Tiger just trying to keep his interest in the game going into Sunday.  Naah!  He really didn’t want to do that.

He finished the round sort of limping in with a birdie on 18 to take a one-shot lead over Bob May and Scott Dunlap with a bunch of guys only two or three back.  The final round will go down as one of the best golf matches of all time.  Tiger led by one and Bob May was supposed to crumble.  But he didn’t.  And all the guys in front of them made their runs but then also fell back to make it a two-man show on the back nine.  Tiger made a couple of errors so uncharacteristic of him at the start.  He bogeyed—BOGEYED!—the par-5 second hole while May birdied and suddenly Tiger was behind by one.  Then Tiger 3-putt number five to lose another shot and was behind by two.  But he managed birdies on 8 and 9 to pull it back to one shot.  The back nine was unbelievable, how they each kept matching great shot with great shot, great putt with great putt.  Finally, at 17, Tiger birdied to pull it back to even.  On eighteen they both hit the green in two but left themselves with horrendous putts.  May over-hit his first putt and knocked it fifteen feet past the cup onto the back fringe.  Tiger knocked his over the ridge and within six feet.  May then made his downhiller and Tiger made his to match his birdie.  On to the 3-hole playoff.  Tiger made a twenty-footer on sixteen to take a one shot lead for the first time since the second hole of regulation.  Then both made bad tee shots on the next two but both made miraculous saves for par.  But Tiger’s sand-save par on eighteen was the one that won it for him.  What a remarkable round of golf.  Tiger’s and May’s final totals of eighteen under were new record lows.  So now Tiger either holds outright or is tied for the record scores in all four majors. Amazing.

Then there was the Tournament of Champions in Akron. In the first round, Tiger shot a 61 and set all kinds of records.  He tied the course record for Firestone South, he set a new 36-hole record at Firestone, and he set a new all-time record low score on the PGA Tour for 36 holes (125).  What’s he going to do next?  Probably shoot a 56.  He’s an amazing kid.

In the third round he went birdie, eagle, birdie to go four under after three holes.  Amazing.  But then he cooled off for the rest of the front and shot only, only! A 33, and was leading Mickelson by nine.  And he kept making pars to the end of the round to shoot a 67.  Venturi and the boys all thought he was going to shoot a 59 or better after that great start, but Tiger put it on hold and coast-mode, saying, “Come on and get me, boys.  I’m not going to do any backing up.”  The others all fell back and Hal Sutton got to within eight to take second place.  Mickelson and the other pretenders to the throne were tagging along at nine and ten back.  In fact, Mickelson looked like he nearly spit up on his shoes on the last hole.  Tiger has a very makeable birdie and Phil a fairly long putt for par.  Phil misses, Tiger misses, then Phil misses his tap-in bogey to fall out of the final pairing for Sunday.  Most of the boys are just so frustrated trying to catch Tiger they start to make dumb mistakes.

He won that 2000 Tournament of Champions by eleven, setting all kinds of new records not only for Firestone but also the tour.  He is really some kind of charismatic young man.

I think that's enough about Tiger for a while. Now we have to see if he's really for real in the Fed Ex Cup and Ryder Cup.