| AP Sports Headlines |
Thursday, July 18, 2002
By Dan O'Neill
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
GULLANE, Scotland – When one dominates a sport like Tiger Woods is dominating golf, the narrative reservoir runs dry. Woods, after all, has won eight majors since 1997 and won seven of the last 11 golf galas.
Exhausting different ways to write about the winner, those who cover the sport have turned their attention to those who are not winning. Out of angles and adjectives to explain Woods, the writers' freshest slant on the Grand Slam is to slam the competition.
Woods has won the first two majors this season in less than compelling style. A glamorous leaderboard on Sunday at the Masters turned to mush as those who would rival Woods imploded around him. Woods punched out and took home his green jacket with a closing round of 1-under-par 71. Again, Woods was relatively unchallenged at the U.S. Open at Bethpage State Park, capturing the championship with a final-round walkover of 2-over-par 72.
The hierarchy of the game, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and their like, have called into question the championship qualifications of Woods' rivals. They have suggested the competition all but concedes as soon Woods climbs up the leaderboard. They infer the players of their primary era would have put up more of a fight.
As he chases a third consecutive major at the 131st Open Championship, the focus seems not so much on the remarkable efficiency of Woods as on the ineffectiveness of his competition. Defending British Open champion David Duval thinks such conclusions have no substance.
"I think it's an easy thing to sit up here and talk with a bunch of folks like yourself, if given the forum, and try to say the players today were better than yesteryear, or vice versa . . . it's easy to say when you can't compare," Duval said. "There is no way to argue either side of it. You can't say David Duval doesn't have the guts or the drive, or Phil Mickelson doesn't, or Sergio (Garcia). Or they're not good enough or too spoiled. How are you going to argue it?
"It's like comparing–forgive me, I don't know the years–but it's like comparing the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1960s to the Dallas Cowboys of the 1980s. How do you do it? You can't do it. So I think it is a waste of time."
Woods steers clear of controversy
So does Woods. After a practice round at Muirfield Golf Links on Tuesday, the Grand Slam pursuant went as far as to say the players of his era are better than the previous generation, technically speaking anyway.
"I think if you just look at the scoring averages these guys are shooting, how much lower these guys are having to play major championships . . . " Woods said. "You know, it's not too often you go out there and break the scoring record in the PGA Championship and you are in a playoff" as he was in 2000 with Bob May.
"The guys are getting better and the scores are getting lower and it's tougher to win. More guys have a chance to win. In their era, there were a select few guys that had a chance. Now that group has certainly grown and there are more players that have a chance."
The numbers can be cooked to support either case, depending on either side of the argument. But where the majors are concerned, Woods is most often compared with Nicklaus. And in that regard, there are interesting contrasts to consider, contrasts that raise questions about the value of the competition. For instance, Nicklaus won 18 majors by a total of 44 strokes. Woods has won his eight majors by 44 strokes.
Woods never has finished second, which compliments his ability to finish when he contends, but also may say something about the nature of the skirmishes. Woods is eight for eight when he has the lead going into the final round; he is 0 for 14 when he trails going into the final round. Nicklaus finished second 19 times in majors and had a scoring average of 68.8 in the final rounds of those 19 tournaments. Nicklaus came from behind to win seven of his 18 majors.
Those that have finished second to Woods in the majors have a cumulative total of five majors on their resume. The players who finished second to Nicklaus account for 22 major titles. And in Nicklaus' 19 seconds, the winning players accounted for 42 major victories. They include names like Palmer, Tom Watson, Raymond Floyd, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino and Seve Ballesteros.
"One man to beat"
Nick Faldo, who has six majors, including two Opens at Muirfield, said the 26-year old Woods has caught the competition with its guard down. "I think the guys had a nasty shock with Tiger coming in and, you know, his commitment to everything," said Faldo, 45. "I think that's the bit that probably has the guys off balance. Physically, he can get around the golf course. If his swing goes off, he can literally muscle it around the golf course and he's very strong mentally."
At the same time, Faldo said he would give the edge to the previous generation in terms of putting up a protest. "I think they were just slightly fiercer competitors," he added. "I mean, you look at Seve, his biggest asset was his heart.
"I wouldn't say that's what is missing. I'm sure (today's players), inside out, are trying as hard as they can. But Tiger is definitely a step above everybody else."
Perhaps that pace will change at the Open. Many consider Muirfield to be the course to draw more players into the fray. "This will bring a bigger field into the equation, much more so than the U.S. Open or the Masters, and that's the way it should be," said Davis Love III, the 1997 PGA Championship winner. "Anybody who has been there often enough and hits it on the fairway enough can play this golf course. Courses like this better decide who's the best player."
Or, as Nicklaus and others have implied, perhaps most of the players who tee it up on Thursday already have decided.
"There is still one man to beat this week," said Thomas Bjorn, who tied for a distant second behind Woods at St. Andrews in 2000. "He just is better than everyone else and I don't think the golf course matters that much. As long as he does his thing, he will still go out as the favorite."
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© 2002, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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