Thursday, June 15, 2000
Tiger confident entering Open
SUSAN FORNOFF
San Francisco Examiner
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Tiger Woods
isn't likely to point his driver at a green 360 yards away and
try to knock one on, or shout “Who Da Man?” to playing
partners Jim Furyk and Jesper Parnevik on Thursday.
But the 24-year-old's cool confidence on
the eve of the 100th U.S. Open makes it clear that he's finished
his five-year training program in this major and intends to graduate.
“I've had a 63 and two 64s in final
rounds here, and I know I can play this golf course,” said
Woods, this year's champion and a regular contender in the AT&T
Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “Last year at Pinehurst, I felt very
confident, had my mind and body right where they needed to be,
and I'd say that's true even a little more now than it was last
year.”
Last year, Woods tied for third with Vijay
Singh, behind Payne Stewart and Phil Mickelson. It was his best
U.S. Open finish, by far, and it was perhaps a signal that, as
Tom Watson would say, his U.S. Open light switch had been flicked
on.
“That's what people in golf magazines
write about all the time: What is that light switch?” said
Watson, who won here in 1982. “A light switch can be a variety
of things, but it's there.”
Woods has played in five U.S. Opens, but
flunked U.S. Open 101. He had to withdraw from his first, in 1995,
after spraining his wrist trying to power a second-round shot
out of the Shinnecock Hills rough.
Still an amateur in 1996, he tied for 82nd
at 14-over at Oakland Hills, and then with the Masters jacket
in his closet in 1997 he was disappointed to tie for 19th, 6-over
at Congressional.
At the Olympic Club in 1998, he managed
to stay fairly far from the hunt, tying for 18th at 10-over. That
was the year that Butch Harmon started wiring that light switch,
retooling Woods' swing.
“I always felt that I could play to
win. I had a desire to win. I wanted to beat you. But sometimes
my physical abilities weren't there,” Woods said. “That's
why I needed to get my physical abilities up to where my mind
was. My mind won me a lot of tournaments. But physically I always
felt I wasn't as good as I could be, and that's what I've been
working on to get where I'm at now.
“And I guess this major championship
is more predicated on driving the ball than the other three.”
Woods' PGA Tour numbers holler “Who
Da Man?” for him — 19 titles overall, including two
majors, and four titles and $4 million-plus in just 10 events
this year, with only one Sunday back in February where he had
an early wakeup call.
Even at the practice tee, Woods has been
hitting the ball so well, he seems to be amazing even himself.
There are none of those comments about having room for improvement
or not having his A game these days.
“Well, I am playing pretty good right
now,” he said, fresh from a three-week vacation. “I've
hit a lot of good shots in my practice sessions. I've played some
pretty good rounds. I've shot some pretty good numbers.
“When I'm at home, I'm trying to pick
sides of the fairway I want to hit the ball on, shape it in there
to 10-yard-wide fairways, and I was able to do it. And that leads
you to believe that you can do it in a tournament.”
There are plenty of believers, of course.
“You've got to have Tiger up there
in front of everybody else,” said Singh, who then went down
the list. “But David (Duval) played well last week. I played
with Nick Price and he's hitting the ball good. And (Greg) Norman
is hitting the ball good. Nobody really focuses on those guys,
but their game suits conditions like this. They hit the ball straight
off the tee, and they're great ball-strikers.”
Singh added Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie
and Lee Westwood to the list, based on their playing styles and
the conditions at Pebble Beach.
Woods seems to hope those conditions are
brutal.
“I think if you're playing well, you
always want to have the conditions tough,” he said. “And
I feel like I'm playing pretty good coming into the tournament.
And if the wind blows, great ... The harder the conditions, the
more it favors the person who's playing well ... The level I've
been playing at, with the wind, I think I can do all right.”
The way he sounds, it's hard to believe
he needs any help.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service,
http://www.shns.com.)
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