Wednesday, December 27, 2000
2001: A golf odyssey
By Lorne Rubinstein
Toronto Globe and Mail
It begins soon enough, with hardly a break
from the previous season: Welcome to 2001, A Golf Odyssey, and
a look ahead.
The first question, the one that many people
will ask and in fact have already asked, is this: If Tiger Woods
wins the Masters in April, will that constitute a Grand Slam?
He's won the last three majors — the 2000 U.S. Open, British
Open and PGA Championship. Should he snag the Masters, Woods will
have taken all four majors in a row.
Let it be said that a win by Woods at the
Masters will not constitute a Grand Slam. The feat has to be accomplished
in a calendar year. Woods has been mischievous, implying that
if he wins he'll have all four majors at once and so that should
count as the Grand Slam. But there's a hint of amusement in his
voice when he speaks on the subject.
Woods tipped his hand last year when he
completed a run of six consecutive PGA Tour events. All the talk
was about whether he could win 11 in a row, as Byron Nelson did
in 1945. Woods had won the last four tournaments he played in
1999 and then the first two in 2000. He said that Nelson's remarkable
streak occurred during a calendar year and he would have to do
the same to match it.
But nobody said Woods has to be consistent
in his thinking. What we do know is that he's far and away the
world's best golfer, and that we have no idea what he could accomplish
in 2001.
He won nine times on the PGA Tour this year,
including his majors. Could he win more? Yes. Could he win all
four majors, giving him the authentic Grand Slam and seven consecutive
majors? Unlikely, but possible given his unearthly abilities.
Could he successfully defend his Bell Canadian Open title, this
time at the Royal Montreal Golf Club? Of course he could, even
if it was in 1997 at the club's Blue course that he missed the
only cut of his pro career. That was then. This is now.
But enough of Woods, for now. There are
other players on Planet Golf. One would expect that David Duval
and Phil Mickelson will win their first majors soon enough. Canada's
favorite male golfer, Mike Weir, should continue to improve and
contend in majors, perhaps winning one.
He told Bob Weeks, The Globe and Mail's
curling columnist, that he expects to come out ready to play his
best at the start of the season. Weir has tended to play his best
golf later in the year.
Away from the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour,
the European Tour bears are watching. Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio
Garcia, Lee Westwood and other top European golfers plan to play
more on the PGA Tour, which could hurt the European circuit. In
any case, the European Tour always has the most captivating event
of all — the British Open.
Next year's Open will be held in July at
the Royal Lytham Golf Club on the west coast of England. Tom Lehman
won the Open the previous time it was held there, in 1996. The
course begins unusually, with a par-three. Lytham isn't the most
well known course on the Open rotation but has produced exciting
finishes. Seve Ballesteros beat Nick Price on the last hole there
in the 1988 Open.
The British Open will come along as the
third of the majors in men's golf, as always. First comes the
Masters at the Augusta National Golf Club, and then the U.S. Open
in June at the Southern Hills course in Tulsa, a strong Perry
Maxwell-designed layout. The PGA Championship will be held in
August at the Atlanta Athletic Club, which doesn't get the juices
flowing. But if Woods has won the first three majors, look out
as he goes for the Grand Slam.
There's also the Ryder Cup, which will be
held Sept. 28 to 30 at the Belfry in Sutton Coldfield, England.
U.S. captain Curtis Strange and European captain Sam Torrance
have promised three days of matches marked by a sportsmanship
that recent Ryder Cups have lacked. We'll see how the players
react and we'll see how the crowds react. Expect anything.
The PGA Tour's new television contract is
on the table. How big will it be?
On the business side of the game, we can
look forward to the PGA Tour and Woods continuing to meet over
marketing rights. Woods wants to protect his name. The PGA Tour
doesn't mind, but believes its sponsors who dole out millions
for tournaments deserve the right to associate themselves with
their winners — and the man who wins is often the man named
Woods.
A final note on the sport itself: Green
fees are getting out of hand. If a recession hits, and the indicators
are all there, then golf could suffer in a big way. It wouldn't
be a bad thing for green fees to come down. Then more people could
play the game. We're in a period when green fees of $100 and more
are becoming common. That can't go on forever, and probably won't.
Tiger Woods can't go on forever either.
But he could go on for another 20 years, winning and winning and
winning. He's raising the bar, to appropriate the title of Tim
Rosaforte's crafty new biography of Woods. And that alone will
make 2001, A Golf Odyssey, a must-see and must-follow season.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service,
http://www.shns.com.)
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