Success traps Tiger
A bad year? With four Tour victories?
By KEN FIDLIN -- Toronto Sun
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- There's an awful lot of bass-ackward thinking going on here at golf's Last Chance Saloon.
As another season of major championships is about to pass into history, there is great angst among the majestic oaks of upstate New York. As usual, Tiger Woods is at the heart of it all.
As recently as a year ago, Tiger was simply too good. Bad for the game. Everyone else withered in his awesome presence. His dominance was unquestioned, his opponents were cowed.
"What's wrong with you wimps?" we all asked, over and over again. Well, apparently nothing. Nothing at all.
With the meat of the 2003 golf season almost consumed, the question has been reversed. "What's wrong with Tiger?" was the theme of the day and, indeed, of an entire year in which five other gentlemen have stared him down to win major titles. A reasoned answer is, of course, "Nothing is wrong." But reason isn't sexy or controversial or fodder for talk radio.
So, when Woods goes five majors without a win, the world is suddenly spinning off its axis. Bad for the game.
"Everyone has been on me for how bad I've played this year," Woods said yesterday after a practice round for the PGA Championship to be played this week at fabled Oak Hill Country Club.
"Christ, I've won four times."
Don't get the wrong impression. There was nothing dark or brooding or even defensive about Woods' statement. He seemed to be enjoying the thrust and parry of the interview room. He completely gets it. He understands that when the famous coffee table in his living room that once was cluttered by all four major trophies becomes utterly barren, as it is now, the world is going to want to know why.
"That's just the way it is," he said. "If you're successful, people are going to place expectations on you."
"Well, I think Tiger has set such a high standard," Ernie Els said. "He has a normal season going for him. He has won four times. Normal for him, but quite exceptional for other players.
"This year is quite different. Other years, Tiger stood out by far from any other player around the world. This year, other players such as Mike Weir, Davis (Love), Jim Furyk, Kenny Perry -- I can go on and on -- are all having great years and Tiger is included in that group. It just shows you the level of the other players has come up this year."
With all that said, if Woods gets all the disparate parts of his game under control to win this weekend, there is little doubt he will win his fifth consecutive player of the year title.
Woods is acutely aware that over the past several years he has lost the length advantage he once enjoyed over his lesser rivals. While other players have been gobbling up new technology, Woods has stayed in the dark ages, somewhat by choice.
Just recently he went back to a six-year-old Titleist driver, eschewing the "inferior" -- to quote Phil Mickelson -- Nike club that he has been wielding the past couple of seasons.
Without getting too technical, Woods simply doesn't like the big-headed drivers being produced today. He likes to "work" the ball and the rocket-launchers being used by other players make that subtle art nearly impossible.
To be able to manipulate the ball off the tee with his driver, Woods prefers the shallow club face of his old Titleist. To get the trampoline effect (and longer distances) that new drivers provide, the club face has to be huge, so that the hitting area can be milled thinner. You give up one to get the other.
"If you have a shallower club face, obviously that club face must be thicker," Woods said. "It's hard to have a thin, shallow face.
"Guys have changed their swings to accommodate (the big clubheads) and I haven't. I like my swing the way it is. It's been pretty successful."
You might say that. You can bet that Nike was devastated by his decision and you can be fairly certain Woods had to renegotiate his eight-figure contract as a result of the marketing damage that his switch has, and will, cause to Nike's line of clubs.
DRIVER DECISION
On the other hand, if Woods can't win with the Nike driver in his hands, how valuable is he to the rest of the company line? If it takes an old, beat-up Titleist driver to get his name back on a major championship trophy, sooner rather than later, then isn't that better for Nike?
One of these days, perhaps as soon as next Sunday, Woods will render all this discussion moot. He'll grab a major by the lapels and the rest of us will slap our foreheads and say "What were we thinking?"
"I think golf is just a funny game," Weir said. "It's a fickle game. (Tiger) was on a great roll for a long time and he still is.
"People are going to catch up and that's just the way it is. He's still the best player out here right now. There's a bunch of us trying to catch him, but he's the best."
And you can bet Tiger doesn't want to wait till next year to prove it.
