Wednesday, June 14, 2000
Keep your eye on the Tiger
By Mark Purdy
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
PEBBLE BEACH — It takes a few minutes. But after staring
across the Pebble Beach terrain for a while, you finally understand
what is different. In 1992, the last time that the U.S. Open was
played on the premises, the bleachers weren't there.
See? Those huge bleachers out there at the eighth green? And the
ninth? And the 10th? None of them was there eight years ago. In
1992, there were far fewer stands and just 11,000 bleacher seats.
This year, there are more modern stands with 20,000 fixed chair-backed
seats, which means a bunch more tickets can be sold to watch golf's
best show anywhere.
Here is what those new seats should be called: Tiger Towers. Of,
if you will, Tiger Pews (as opposed to Tiger Paws). They are the
most visible reminder of how one man has changed the sport in
just the past few years. The U.S. Open is always a major event.
But eight years ago, it still wasn't major enough for those extra
seats. Tiger Woods literally has changed the landscape. During
his practice round Tuesday, thousands followed him to simply watch
him noodle around the greens and try different shots from different
angles.
“I am playing pretty good right now,” Woods had said
earlier in the day. “When I'm practicing at home, I try to
pick sides of the fairway I want to hit the ball on, shape it
in there to 10-yard wide fairways (like some at the Open). And
I was able to do it. And that lends you to believe that if you
can do it there, you can definitely do it in a tournament.”
For anyone else, that might be a standard pre-tournament quote.
Coming from Tiger Woods, it sounds downright scary.
In other words: Do not take your eye off this man this week. One
of Woods' best qualities is that he never downplays the stakes.
He owns up to them, every time, every round, every shot. And the
stakes for Tiger in this U.S. Open are as plain as the $68 price
tags on golf shirts in the merchandise tent.
If Tiger Woods wants to be known as the best golfer ever —
and he has said he does — then he needs to win an Open at
Pebble Beach sooner or later. That is what Jack Nicklaus, the
man currently recognized as history's best golfer, once did. And
if we set up a scoreboard, matching Woods' accomplishments at
241/2 to Nicklaus' accomplishments at the same age, it also is
time for Woods to win another major.
At the same age Tiger is today, Nicklaus already had won the Masters,
the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open. So far, Woods has won
the first two. This week is his opportunity to match Nicklaus
in the third — on the same course where Nicklaus once won
the tournament himself. He also won 17 other major championships,
for the grand total of 18 that Woods will be chasing over the
next two decades.
“Jack has obviously set the bar up pretty high for everyone
to try and chase after,” Woods said. “To win as many
majors as he has, and the record he has in the major championships,
is very remarkable. . . . When he first came out, he played pretty
well.”
Um, no kidding. And those who think comparing Woods and Nicklaus
on a sort of a lap-by-lap basis is unfair should remember that
the first to do it was Tiger himself. We've heard all those stories
about how young Eldrick Woods taped up a list on his closet door,
outlining Nicklaus' accomplishments at various ages — and
how Woods promised himself that he would match them.
Their scoreboard results, right now anyway, are remarkably similar.
Nicklaus turned pro a year later than Woods, so he had been out
on Tour fewer weeks than Woods at the same age. But basically,
Woods has done better on the PGA Tour than Nicklaus did in his
early years, while Nicklaus did better in the major championships.
Rest assured, Woods is locked in on the hunt. Someone asked him
Tuesday whether, given the Tour's deeper talent and more space-age
equipment, it was still “viable” for anyone to win 18
major titles in this era, Woods didn't hesitate to answer.
“It's viable, definitely,” Woods replied. “It's
just that . . . . what you have to do is put yourself in that
position, to win. You're not going to win every one and obviously
Jack proved that in (finishing second) 17 times (in major events).”
In just a few years, Tiger has figured out the real trick to winning
major titles. It's not complicated. A man first must gear himself
to those four weeks every year. Woods has learned to do that.
Next, a man must concentrate on simply getting to those final
nine holes on Sunday with a chance to win, no matter what speed
bumps he hits in the first 63 holes. Finally, over those final
nine holes, a man must let it rip. Because odds are, if you are
Tiger Woods, you will win at least half the time in that situation.
“There are times you're going to beat everybody down the
stretch,” Woods said. “There are times they're going
to give you the major. And other times, a person is going to flat
outplay you and you're going to play bad. But the key is to put
yourself there, time and time again, on the back nine on Sunday.
And see what happens.”
If you will recall, that's what occurred in February when Woods
stormed from seven shots behind on the back nine to win the AT&T
Pebble Beach National Pro-Am title. That wasn't a major, of course.
But it was played on the same course, with the same principle.
Later on Tuesday, when Nicklaus was posed the same question about
winning 18 majors today vs. yesterday, he at first didn't like
the question, but then warmed to it a little. There was not the
same public scrutiny when he broke the old record of 13 major
championships, set by Bobby Jones.
“I didn't even think about that until 1970 when I won the
British Open,” Nicklaus said, “I walked in and they
said, `Jack, that's great, that's your 10th major and you only
have three more to tie Jones.' That was the first time anybody
mentioned it. With Tiger, the first time he wins a tournament,
it's `OK, only 19 more to go.' It's a lot tougher today than it
was then.”
The Golden Bear paused and thought some more.
“I don't think it's fair to compare my record to Jones or
Sam Snead or Ben Hogan or even Tiger, for that matter,” Nicklaus
said. “We all played at different times. We played against
different people. The only comparison you have is majors. The
only logical comparison you have is majors.”
He said it. We didn't. Come Sunday afternoon, check that scoreboard
again. The man who changed Pebble Beach's landscape could be hearing
a lot of noise from the bleachers he erected.
(c) 2000, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.).
Visit Mercury Center, the World Wide Web site of the Mercury News,
at http://www.sjmercury.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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