Wednesday, June 13, 2001
Woods not satisfied with
past successes
Tiger big favorite to claim
fifth straight major championship
By Doug Ferguson
Associated Press
TULSA, Okla. — Forget about the power
and the precision, or even the deadly touch around the greens.
The success of Tiger Woods can be traced to what he did the week
before the U.S. Open.
He wasn’t on a golf course, but on
a river in Utah, fly fishing with Mark O’Meara. Once a novice
with a fishing rod, Woods was casting like a pro with nearly flawless
loops.
“He kicked my butt,” O’Meara
said Tuesday. “He doesn’t like to lose at anything.”
What amazed O’Meara was not so much
the competitive nature of Woods, but how much he mastered in such
a short time since they first started fly fishing.
“He is an expert at processing information,”
O’Meara said. “He takes in only what can make him better
and manages to discard the old. He always wants to learn how to
get better.”
That explains why Woods decided to rebuild
his swing, step by step, after winning the Masters by 12 strokes.
That explains why the best player in the world spends more quality
hours refining his swing instead of celebrating where that swing
has brought him.
And that explains why Woods arrived at Southern
Hills as such an overwhelming favorite that oddsmakers have turned
this U.S. Open into Tiger against the field.
“Would I put money on me? Probably
not,” Woods said. “Just because I don’t think it
would be a good business decision with those odds.”
Then he paused, sensing his remarks could
be interpreted the wrong way.
“Now, do I like my chances? Yes, I
do.”
What’s not to like?
The only tournament Woods has failed to
win in the last three months was the Byron Nelson Classic, when
he returned from his longest layoff of the year and showed signs
of rust. He closed with a 63 and tied for third.
When it comes to the majors, Woods has no
peer. His two-stroke victory at the Masters gave him an unprecedented
clean sweep of the majors. The opportunity that awaits at Southern
Hills is to become the first player ever to win five in a row.
Bobby Jones won four straight majors —
all in 1930 — when they were the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur,
British Open and British Amateur. Young Tom Morris also won four
straight majors, but that was from 1868-72, when the British Open
was the only major.
“I’m not trying to win five, I’m
trying to win one,” Woods said. “Whatever I’ve
done in the previous four majors isn’t going to help me hit
any shots out here. I’m not going to have an out-of-body
experience and sit there and watch myself hit a shot.”
Any more, it seems like that’s what
everyone else has been doing — watching him, wondering what
it will take to beat him in the most important championships.
This week figures to be no different.
A year ago, O’Meara played a practice
round with Woods at Pebble Beach on the eve of the U.S. Open and
declared to friends that the tournament was over. He was right,
as Woods turned in perhaps the greatest performance in history
to win by 15 strokes.
O’Meara isn’t going to declare
this Open to be case closed. Then again ...
“He’s primed to play well,”
O’Meara said. “I wouldn’t hesitate at all to say
he’ll be in the last two groups on Sunday. I don’t see
any weaknesses in his game.”
Mark Calcavecchia joined them for a practice
round and reached the same conclusion.
“I’ve seen him hit it worse and
win majors,” Calcavecchia said.
Southern Hills is a test unlike any other
major over the past three years because of fairways that bend
around trees and are framed by fickle Bermuda rough, greens that
are fast and firm and heavily contoured and can wreak havoc when
the ball is on the wrong side of the hole.
“The course is going to be tough, the
wind is going to be tough and the competition is going to be tough,”
Davis Love III said. “It’s the guy who wins the mental
battle that will do it. And that’s what Tiger has been doing.”
Woods loses an ally in that Southern Hills
has only two par 5s, one of which is the longest hole in U.S.
Open history at 642 yards (No. 5). Woods used driver off the tee
during his practice round Tuesday morning and watched it roll
across the canted fairway toward a bunker down the right side.
“What’s the point?” he said
to himself, then hit 3-iron off the tee.
A day earlier, Woods was in the fifth fairway
and waiting for the green to clear, unaware that Eduardo Romero
was waving him on, wanting to see if Woods could get home in two.
Woods hit an easy 3-wood that hit the green
and trickled into the rough. Romero retrieved the ball and placed
it 4 feet from the hole.
Such are the expectations, even if Woods
doesn’t get caught up in them.
“I really don’t have that appreciation
for what I’ve been able to accomplish because I’ve been
so focused on that and I don’t see the periphery and what
it really means,” he said. “All I see is trying to shape
a shot and trying to make a putt.”
His mind is always at work, churning away
in pursuit of getting better as everyone else simply tries to
get close.
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