Sunday, July 23, 2000
Tiger Woods in charge at British
Open
By Joe Juliano
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - Tiger Woods' smile,
which has not been seen much this week as he has traversed the
Old Course in his quest to establish golf history, appeared Saturday
at the famous and difficult Road Hole, the 17th.
Woods pulled his second shot ever so slightly.
The ball flirted with the dangerous Road Hole bunker, coming within
three feet before finding a resting place on the green.
"I tried to hit about a one-yard draw
there," he said later with a straight face, "but I started
about two yards left of where I wanted it ... just on the wrong
line. It was a beautiful shot, though."
Woods was not smiling when he 3-putted for
a bogey, but he got the smile back, accompanied by a fist pump,
with a birdie at No. 18 that enabled him to take a seemingly insurmountable
6-stroke lead after the third round of the British Open.
With his 5-under-par 67 on Saturday, Woods
stood at 16-under 200 through 54 holes. He entered Sunday's final
round likely to become the fifth player in golf history, and the
youngest ever, to complete golf's modern Grand Slam - victories
in the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, and the British
Open.
Before he gets his name on that honored
page of the record book, Woods, 24, has entered it on some others.
His 16-under-par total was the second-lowest in the 129-year history
of the championship, bettered only by Nick Faldo's 17-under total
after three rounds here in 1990. His 54-hole first-place margin
matches the third-largest in this event.
Only Tom Lehman (198 in 1996) and Faldo
(199 in 1990 and 1992) have scored lower for three rounds.
All this led to the obvious question on
Saturday: Can he lose the championship from here?
"Yeah, that's possible," said
Woods, who led last month's U.S. Open by 10 strokes going into
the final round and won by 15.
"I'd have to go out there and not exactly
execute the shots I want to execute, and then someone else has
to play a wonderful round of golf."
How likely is that? On the PGA Tour, Woods
has won 15 of 16 tournaments he has led entering the final round.
His mark in worldwide events since turning pro is 18 of 20.
The contestants prepared to challenge Woods
are headed by a familiar face - David Duval, the world's No. 2-ranked
player behind Woods.
Duval, shrugging off a bad back that prevented
him from sitting during his post-round interview, vaulted from
a tie for 15th into a tie for second with a 66 that matched the
low round of the day. His 206 total tied him with Denmark's Thomas
Bjorn, who had a 68.
Since Duval was the first to finish at 10
under, he will be paired with Woods in Sunday's final twosome,
marking the first time the two have played together in a major.
David Toms, who endured the challenge of
playing with Woods on Saturday, fired a 71 to join Loren Roberts
(70) and Darren Clarke (68) at 207. The foursome at 208 consisted
of Lehman, Ernie Els, Steve Flesch and Dennis Paulson. Lehman
and Els had 70s on Saturday, Paulson a 69, and Flesch a 71.
Instead of anticipating a tight and tense
finish on Sunday, consider this:
Woods carded two bogeys on Saturday, including
one at the second hole that snapped his streak of 63 holes without
a bogey in major tournaments. He 3-putted three times - twice
for bogey and once for par, at the 10th, after he drove the 314-yard
hole. Yet, even with the "couple of little mess-ups,"
as he called them, Woods shot the second-best number of the day.
Only three players shot better. Duval played heroically and well,
with six birdies and no bogeys, in carding a 66, and gained only
1 stroke on Woods.
"I think if you look at all the great
champions in any sport, they have the ability to channel (the
pressure) more," Duval said. "I don't think you get
immune to the pressure. I think you feel it, but you learn what
it feels like and how your body reacts, and you learn how to use
that.
"Tiger is so good at using it to his
advantage. That's what you need to do. That's what Jack Nicklaus
has done, or Nick Faldo has done. It's what Joe Montana or John
Elway has done. You see those things."
Those things were on display again on Saturday.
Woods lipped out a 3-foot par putt at No. 2 but birdied the next
hole. He picked up birdies at 8 and 9, and converted three more
in succession at holes 14 through 16. He followed his slip at
No. 17 with his seventh birdie of the day on the 18th.
When asked whether he would play more conservatively
on Sunday with his huge lead, Woods replied that he had not been
playing aggressively.
"I have a game plan of how I want to
play," he said, "and what lines I need to choose to
get to certain pins, what is the risk-reward on that line, and
play it accordingly. When you're playing well, the perception
is things seem to be a little easier, but the reality is that
it's not.
"You go out there and you've got to
play smart. There are just a lot of different factors that people
probably don't comprehend that we have to go through out there."
Whatever Woods has to go through today,
he will have the chance to complete the Grand Slam. He is almost
two years younger than Jack Nicklaus was when he achieved the
feat in 1966.
Talking about the final day, Woods evoked
a moment familiar to Phillies fans.
"Coming down the stretch on Sunday,
that's part of how you look at it because that's the ultimate,"
Woods said. "When Joe Carter came up with two outs in the
bottom of the ninth and hit the home run to win the game, that
is the ultimate. That's how you can compare Sunday afternoon,
coming down the stretch with a chance to win."
He promises he will stay in the present,
and won't get excited about what awaits him at the presentation
ceremony in front of the Royal & Ancient clubhouse this evening
until he arrives there.
"I understand what it takes to play
in the final round of any tournament," he said. "You
can't let yourself look ahead to the final outcome, because if
you don't take care of the present, the final outcome may not
be what you want."
(c) 2000, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer's World Wide Web site,
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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