Thursday, July 19, 2001
Woods back at course that was a career
turning point
By Bill Nichols
The Dallas Morning News
(KRT)
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — Tiger Woods was an amateur
when he played the 1996
British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club.
He tied for 22nd, but more important, his experience that
week proved to him that he could
succeed as a professional. He has gone on to dominate the golf
world, winning 37 tournaments
worldwide, including last year’s British Open at St. Andrews.
Woods points to his 5-under 66 in the second round of the
1996 Open, which tied the lowest
score by an amateur in British Open history, as an important turning
point in his development.
“That round, my swing really came together,” Woods
said. “I had been working on a lot of
different things. For some reason, I really felt comfortable with
the move I was making, and I executed
the shots.
“If I wanted to put it here with this shape, I was able
to do that. To do that in a major
championship atmosphere gave me the confidence to know I could
do it down the road, and
hopefully, as a professional.”
Woods and the other 155 players in the 130th British Open
will find a different Royal Lytham
course than the one Woods cut his teeth on.
Rains have made the rough extremely thick, and the fairways
slow. Winds have consistently
gusted around 30 mph.
“The rough is brutal,” Ireland’s Darren Clarke
said.
Woods remembers a kinder Royal Lytham than the one on which
he posted the best finish of his
17 professional events as an amateur.
“The conditions were so much more conducive for me as
an amateur to play well,” he said. “We
did not get a whole lot of rain leading into that Open championship,
and the fairways were hard and
fast, the greens were hard and fast. The rough was real sparse
and you could blow it anywhere and it
would be OK. This year, that is not the story. We have had a lot
of rain. The rough is up, and
consequently, it is a lot slower.”
And Woods is a much different player than he was then. Last
year, he won the Open at St.
Andrews by a record eight shots.
After winning four straight majors, including this year’s
Masters, Woods failed to successfully
defend his title at the U.S. Open. He has finished out of the
top 10 in his last three starts.
But he enters Thursday’s first round confident with recent
swing changes he has made with
instructor Butch Harmon. Harmon has been raving about his prize
pupil’s progress, going so far as to
say that if Woods is on his game he could win blindfolded.
Woods is a little more realistic in assessing his game since
the U.S. Open.
“My swing really has not been as solid as I would like
it to be,” he said. “I am starting to hit the
ball a bit more solid. It was just a matter of practicing. I was
able to do that last week in Ireland, and I
was starting to get it.”
Thomas Bjorn, who beat Woods at the Dubai Desert Classic earlier
this season and was paired
with him for two rounds at the U.S. Open, said Woods is more confident.
“We all know, when it comes down to it, there are 155
good players here and one that is just a
bit out of this world,” Bjorn said. “If he has a great
week like he did last year, he is going to be very
difficult to compete with. If he plays his normal golf, well then
you step up your game and have the
greatest week of your life, you can beat him. But, saying that,
this is the British Open, and anything can
happen.”
Conditions should have a lot to do with what happens, considering
the rain and heavy rough,
which will force players to chip out in most cases. Tough conditions
could help the rest of the field stay
close to Woods.
“If the wind blows, that will be the best thing for all
of us to have a close tournament,” said Sergio
Garcia, a two-time winner this year. “Patience is real important.
You don’t want to do too much out of
this kind of rough because, first of all, it is probably not going
to work out. And second of all, you can
hurt yourself.”
© 2001, The Dallas Morning News.
Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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