Monday, June 18, 2001
Woods's late drive stalls at
no. 12
By Jim McCabe
c.2001 The Boston Globe
TULSA, Okla. — You may think otherwise,
but Tiger Woods was there to tell you that the crushing blow wasn't
the bogey at the 374-yard, par-4 ninth, the hole that he played
in 4 over this week.
No, sir. The killer in Sunday's final round
of the US Open was a putt on the 456-yard, par-4 12th. He had
attacked a pin cut just over the bunker, sticking it to 8 feet.
He was 2 over and visions of a birdie, then another at the par-5
13th were fueling his ambition.
“I'd have been at even par and (the
leaders) were just now getting started with their rounds,”
said Woods. “If I could get three or four more (birdies)
coming in . . . well, that's kind of how I was thinking.”
Good plan. Poor execution.
Which was the story of the week for Woods,
whose bid to win a fifth straight major championship came up well
short. He closed with a 1-under 69 to finish at 3-over 283, tied
for 12th. The defending champion was a shell of the golfer who
had used his PGA Tour brethren as punching bags the past two years
or so. He made more bogeys (12) than birdies (11), had a rare
double bogey, played the par 5s in just 2 under, and hit only
58.3 percent of his greens.
But despite playing a tournament in black
numbers for the first time since the 1999 British Open —
a stretch of 35 PGA Tour events — there were no excuses.
“I played hard and that's all I can
do,” said Woods, who put himself in tough position by opening
with a 74. “I'm proud of the way I hung in there. This course
is hard, the pins were tough to get at. But I made a lot of par
putts. It could have been a lot higher this week, but I hung in
there.”
Nine shots behind to start the day, Woods
stumbled out of the gate with a bogey at the second. He birdied
the par-4 fourth, par-5 fifth, and par-4 seventh to make some
noise. Then came the ninth hole.
Woods had double-bogeyed it to conclude
a 3-over 38 in his first nine of the tournament, then bogeyed
it in Round 3. In both cases, the culprit had been an overhanging
tree that guards the right side of the green. Woods clipped some
branches in attacking the right pin location. In the final round,
his problem was distance control. His approach came up short and
sucked back, spinning all the way down the slope. The bogey put
him at 3 over, eight off the lead with nine holes left.
Did he look for the exit door?
Not a chance.
“You can't bag it, you can't dog it
coming in. The way the wind was blowing, it wasn't easy out there.
Look at the leaderboard and how many guys were backing up.”
So Woods charged on, with a par at 10 and
a birdie at the par-3 11th. Then came the sizzling approach at
12, on line all the way, 8 feet below the cup. And then? “I
hit a good putt but it broke a little too much,” said Woods,
who cringed when the ball drifted left, just over the lip.
Yes, he said, the steam was out of him.
“I never got it going from there.”
His round continued with a string of pars,
interrupted by a bogey at the par-4 17th, then a concluding par
at the 18th to give him his second straight subpar round in the
Open. There would not be a fifth straight major win, so Woods
was asked to reflect upon this unprecedented streak.
“It's really hard to say it was a streak,”
said Woods, who will tee it up this week in the Buick Classic
in Westchester, N.Y., “just because it covered so much time.
But it was fun to win four majors in a row, there's no doubt about
that.”
He paused, squinted as he looked into the
late-afternoon sun, and seemed to hear the roars floating back
from the golf course.
“It was fun this week, but not being
out there with the guys for a chance to win is frustrating. It
was hard to miss that putt at the 12th.”
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