Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Tiger no longer has a firm grasp on the
majors
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
DULUTH, Ga. (AP) — Tiger Woods was chased by a bear while
fishing in Alaska, and now David Duval is trying to hunt him down
on the golf course.
Life never used to be this complicated.
Coming into the PGA Championship, Woods no longer has such a firm
grip on the majors. After making it a clean sweep at the Masters,
his unprecedented streak ended at four in the U.S. Open, and the
British Open was his worst finish in a major (25th) since 1998.
He was asked Tuesday to rate his game on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Somewhere in there,” Woods replied.
Still, he admitted that his game has not been as consistently
good as it was a year ago, when he won 10 times and became the
first man since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one season.
“It's not like I've played so bad that I've gone off the
map,” he said. “I was just a little bit off this summer.
The great thing is I've played well before in the past and I know
what it feels like. I just need to get it — and keep it.”
Atlanta Athletic Club figures to be a great place to find it.
For a par 70, the Highlands Course is exceptionally long at 7,213
yards. The 18th hole is 490 yards, the longest in PGA Championship
history. Five of the par 4s are at least 450 yards, and the two
par 5s are over 540 yards.
Woods rarely hit driver at the U.S. Open because of the firm conditions
and bending fairways of Southern Hills. Ditto for Royal Lytham
& St. Annes, where additional pot bunkers — bringing
the total to 196 — required navigation, not sheer power.
The PGA Championship is different.
“This is a perfect setup for Tiger,” U.S. Open champion
Retief Goosen said. “He's going to be smiling all the way
around the course.”
Woods has had little reason to smile all summer.
He has played four tournaments without recording a top 10 finish.
And even a fishing trip to Alaska two weeks after the U.S. Open
with Mark O'Meara and John Cook wasn't exactly smooth sailing.
O'Meara landed a king salmon dragged it up the bank of the river.
Woods caught one a half-mile away and before long, Cook called
out, “There's a bear.”
“The bear is coming after us because he's smelling the trail
that Mark had drug along the ground with the fish, and it was
coming right at us,” Woods said. “We were all right.
We're still here.”
As long as Woods is on the golf course, he has a chance to win.
Still, the expectations have become so great that Woods was hounded
by questions about a slump when it took him all of six tournaments
before he won this year. Even now, some might suggest he needs
to win the PGA to salvage his season.
“When every eyeball is on you all the time, it's got to be
tough,” O'Meara said after they played a practice round Monday.
A few minutes earlier, he watched Woods fight through a wall of
people behind the ninth green, yelling and pleading for an autograph.
One overzealous fan inadvertently poked him in the cheek with
a book he wanted signed.
“Everyone expects him to win every week,” O'Meara said.
“Not playing the Buick last week was great. Sometimes you
need to get away. But he's never that far off.”
History is not on the line this week. Woods needs to win the PGA
this year and next year to match Walter Hagen's record of four
in a row. Woods last year became the first back-to-back champion
since it changed to stroke play in 1958.
But it's the last major of the year, the last chance for Woods
to gain on Jack Nicklaus' standard of 18 professional majors.
He is one-third of the way there in his fifth full season.
“I think it puts a little more importance on the fact that
it's our last chance to win a major championship of the year,”
Woods said. “This is the last of the big ones.”
Woods played the first two rounds last year with Nicklaus, who
remains his only true rival since Nicklaus has the record Woods
wants — and no one else has given Woods a consistent fight.
The PGA traditional groups the three major champions of the year
together, meaning Woods will play the first two rounds with Goosen
and Duval.
Duval is coming off a three-stroke victory in the British Open,
where he closed with rounds of 65 and 67 for his first major championship.
Suddenly, a renewed rivaly between Duval and Woods is being mentioned.
Duval isn't buying into quite yet.
“The rivalry thing is something you have put on us, or whoever,”
Duval said. “They want Tiger to have a rival. Whatever. I
just want to play great. I'm just working hard to play great golf
and to win these tournaments.”
Duval has a history of breaking through. He was a runner-up seven
times on the PGA Tour before he got his first win, then won three
in a row.
Like Woods, the course fits him well.
“It's a meat course,” Duval said. “I think this
golf course most certainly favors a long hitter. It's all carry
right now, every yard you hit.”
But accuracy is just as important because of the dense Bermuda
rough, and that's where Woods has struggled in the last two majors.
He hardly touched his clubs over the past week, and has appeared
loose and fresh since arriving in Atlanta on Monday.
“I'm very happy with all facets of my game,” he said.
“If you're swinging well, any golf course is going to be
easier.”
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