Wednesday, June 14, 2000
Woods is the obvious favorite
at Pebble Beach but ...
By Ron Green Jr.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PEBBLE BEACH, Cal. — The subject, naturally,
was Tiger Woods.
The 100th U.S. Open begins Thursday at the
Pebble Beach Golf Links and Woods, who has remarkably won 11 of
the last 20 tournaments in which he has played, looms like a dragon
over the year's second major championship.
He is the obvious favorite, having won the
AT&T National Pro-Am here barely four months ago when he rallied
from seven strokes behind on the final day. Most recently, Woods
won the Memorial Tournament a second straight year in his final
competitive tune-up before the U.S. Open.
Any discussion of potential champions in
this centennial edition of the Open starts with the 24-year old
who is already the PGA Tour's all-time leading money winner.
That's why Tom Watson, who won the U.S.
Open here in 1982, was on the subject of Woods.
“Even though we have a lot of great
players, he's the standard,” Watson said. “He's the
person on the leaderboard that everyone looks for. (The media)
looks for him, the players look for him, the golf fans look for
him and the non-golfing fans look for him.
“He's the man.”
And The Man likes the way he feels entering
this Open.
“I think certain elements of my game
are in good form right now and it gives me cause to think that
I might do pretty well here,” Woods said Tuesday morning.
Translation for the other 155 players in
the field: Uh-oh.
A few years ago, Woods and the U.S. Open
looked like a mismatched pair. He was all about bombing long tee
shots and overpowering golf courses.
That doesn't work in U.S. Opens, where the
object is straighter, not longer.
Woods seemed to believe in being heroic,
attempting to force the action rather than accept the consequences
of an errant shot and, thereby, limit the potential for disaster.
That, however, has changed.
“I guess like any teenager, I thought
I knew everything,” Woods said. “But as I've played
more golf, I've really learned how to manage my game and understand
what shots I need to play at what time, how to get the ball here
to there the proper way. I think that's just experience.
“Go out there and play the golf course
for what it has to offer that day, and do the best you can.”
A quick glance at Woods' relatively short
Open record reveals his continuing maturity as a player.
After withdrawing in 1995 at Shinnecock
Hills with a second-round wrist injury (after an opening 83),
Woods tied for 82nd in 1996; tied for 19th in 1997; tied for 18th
in 1998; and, tied for third last year at Pinehurst where he still
had a chance to win as he played the 72nd hole.
Statistically, he was exceptional in Pinehurst's
demanding conditions. No one made more birdies (12), he ranked
tied for third in greens hit in regulation, tied for 13th in putting
and tied for 32nd in fairways in regulation.
That performance served to reinforce Woods'
belief he will, sooner rather than later, win a U.S. Open.
Jack Nicklaus has often said that certain
players can't win an Open because they lack the necessary mental
discipline and toughness it demands. Woods, however, thrives on
such challenges.
He has always understood winning golf tournaments
is as much about winning the mind game as hitting the shots. If
he has been deficient in any area, Woods said, it has been in
having the game to keep up with his mind.
“I've always felt that I had a mental
edge over a lot of my opponents,” Woods said. “That
doesn't mean I have the physical ability to back it up. But I
always felt I could play to win.
“I wanted to beat you, but sometimes
my physical abilities weren't there. 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 - where I am now.”
(c) 2000, The Charlotte Observer
(Charlotte, N.C.).
Visit The Charlotte Observer on the World Wide Web at http://www.charlotte.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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