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Thursday, July 18, 2002
By NED BARNETT
Raleigh News & Observer
I'm not pulling for Tiger Woods to win the British Open.
That confession puts me in the company of about 1 percent of golf fans. Everybody is a Tiger fan. Now the world is taking a seat to see whether he can get the third leg of the Grand Slam at Muirfield in Scotland.
I'm rooting for this year's Jean Van de Velde, a man who showed more humanity in one British collapse in 1999 than Woods has in eight major wins.
It's not that I dislike Woods. He seems nice enough, and God knows, he's meticulous about maintaining an image that is as pure and proper as his swing.
But I can't root for him. It feels worse than rooting for the Yankees. It's like rooting for Nike. Woods is more a corporation than a person. He has his own logo and makes more - $62 million a year in endorsements alone, according to Forbes magazine - than many companies.
Woods plays better than any golfer in history, but he's also unlike any golfer in history in ways you wish he wasn't. He isn't Chi Chi or Fuzzy or the late "Champagne" Tony Lema. He's not grip-and-rip John Daly or hard-luck lefty Phil Mickelson. Woods plays like a cyborg, programmed since age 5 to swing perfectly, win often and win some more.
I missed the Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson eras, most of Palmer's prime and a lot of Nicklaus', but I always thought that being alive and aware when a historic golf figure thrived would be more exciting than it is with Woods. Despite the fist pump and the red shirt, there's no real joy in watching him win. Usually, there's no drama, either.
Woods has a longer, straighter game than other players. He putts with laser-like precision. And when it's time for the trophy presentation, he even has the best smile. But as a golfer without a flaw, Woods allows no empathy. Fans can't identify with 330-yard, straight drives or 12-shot Masters victories. It's more fun to cheer for a guy who hits it in the water and chips it in to win by one.
Woods, impressively, doesn't do that. But beyond the stunning golfer, there's little evidence of the man. Jack Nicklaus played a game with which Bobby Jones was not familiar, but Tiger Woods lives a life with which the world is not familiar. Any confidante of Woods who seems too talkative about life with Tiger is soon out of Tiger's life.
That's OK. I don't begrudge the man his privacy. But the consequence of being a private celebrity is to be seen more as an image than as a person. Yet, Woods is even cautious about sharing his image. He's fought with the PGA about the use of his photograph in tournament promotions. Now, he has gone to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the sale of prints of a painting because it contains his image without his approval.
The print, as reported by the The New York Times, includes Woods in the foreground and six other famous golfers in the background. The artist, Rick Rush, has argued successfully in lower courts that selling the prints of "Masters of Augusta" is protected by free speech. Woods, through his corporate doppelganger, the ETW Corp. (Eldrick "Tiger" Woods), doesn't think Rush's free speech extends to free money.
The courts will decide the legality of Woods' objection, but he's already guilty of avarice. Woods has everything - youth, good looks, a huge fortune and the title of Greatest Golfer Ever. Now he's spending some of his millions to keep a painter from making a buck.
Nevertheless, it's still allowable to discuss Woods' image, and since I've admitted to being among the 1 percent of non-fans, let me compound my eccentricity with blasphemy: Woods isn't the greatest golfer ever, not yet anyway.
He plays better than any golfer ever, but golf is a game of style, invention and fortitude - all summarized in character - and Woods hasn't shown enough of that yet. The title of "greatest" still belongs to the man who mixed prodigious talent with grace under pressure and class under any circumstances.
That would be Jack Nicklaus.
Woods, at 26, is tallying major wins at a rate that will surpass Nicklaus' 18, but the measure of greatness should include not simply dominance but competitiveness. Since Woods won the U.S. Open at Bethpage with a 2-over-par final round, there has been talk about the quality and resolve of his rivals. They say it's not that they're weak, but that Woods is so strong.
They may be right, but Woods needs better competition to strengthen his claim to being the greatest ever. We've seen him win, but we haven't seen him fight much. A telling but overlooked number in the Bear-vs.-Tiger comparison is second-place finishes in majors. Nicklaus, always clawing, finished second in 19 majors. Tiger has never finished second in a major.
No, I'm not pulling for Woods to win the British Open. But I sure would like to see him come from behind to finish a close second or lose on a chip-in. He's worthy of the highest praise, but he'd be even better if he was worthy of some sympathy, too.
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