St. Andrews & Tiger

In this year’s Open Championship and the PGA Championship, I and the rest of the world saw that the old Tiger Woods is back. You remember, the Tiger who so dominated the tour in 2000? That was a year that will probably never be duplicated by any golfer ever again.

I decided to go back to see what I’d said about his victory at St. Andrews in that magical year. It was exciting and I also had some strange things to say about the course everyone credits as being the birthplace of golf. I guess I should retract my slams to prevent anyone from looking to beat me up. But I'll leave them in. See what you think.

The Old Course (I said eighteen years ago) looked as silly as ever, even kind of glassy fast, where the viewer could hardly distinguish fairways from greens.  It’s just a treeless humpy dumpy place where you find the tee boxes and sort of see a flag way down there somewhere.  You hit your tee shot and hope it runs and runs and stays out of one of the really dumb pot bunkers.  Then you find it and hit a low bump and run toward the flag, hoping the bumps and runs are just right and you end up somewhere near the flag.

In the first round, Ernie Els finished at minus 6 to take the first round lead, with Tiger and Steve Flesch one back. On day two, Tiger shot a six under 66 to go with his opening 67 and led by three at the end of the day.  He’s just too good for the rest of the field. Tiger’s making it look like a walk in the park.  On Saturday, he shot another 67 despite his first two bogeys of the tournament (two 3-putts) and was ahead by six after three rounds.

He and Duval were paired in the final group and Duval birdied four of the first seven holes to cut the lead to three.  But then Tiger put it into overdrive again and won walking away. Everyone kept making mini-charges and then falling back.  Typical of the way the others were playing: Duval hit his second into the pot bunker on 17, the infamous bunker guarding the green on the road hole.  He tried twice to get it out, unsuccessfully.  His third shot was a backward chip to get it away from the revetment wall.  Then out and onto the green, and two putts for a quadruple bogey.  Tiger won by eight (tied the old record for biggest margin), was 19 under par (lowest total compared to par in any major), broke Faldo’s St. Andrews record of 18 under, made only three bogeys in four rounds, didn’t have a six on any of his cards, didn’t get in any of the 120 bunkers.

The kid is unreal.  The bookies hate him.  His competitors love him for the increased purses on the tour, hate him because they’re relegated to playing for second in any tournament he’s in.  Bigots hate him because he destroys their bigoted ideas about blacks.  Young kids (white and black and brown and red and yellow) love him because he gives them such an outstanding role model.  I love him because he makes all the bigots so uneasy.  In an interview after the final round, Tiger was told that Butch Harmon had said Tiger was playing up to about 75% of his potential.  Then he was asked if that was true.  Tiger said, “Yes, that’s about right.  I’ve got some flaws in my game I plan to address in the future.”  Whoa!  Now what are the boys going to do?  He plans to fix the 25% still separating him from perfection?  He plans to shoot an 18 someday?

            There, that’s what I said eighteen years ago. I may have been too negative about St. Andrews. And I may have been too positive about Tiger’s being such a good role model. I say this in light of his extra-marital affairs, the fight and divorce from his lovely wife, and his arrest in Florida for drug use and his booking photo. So, Tiger isn’t really a perfect role model for kids, but he’s still a pretty good human.