Tiger Woods gets an A for first year as a pro
By RON SIRAK / AP Golf Writer
The PGA Tour got the best of all possible worlds from Tiger
Woods in his first 12 months as a professional. He brought unprecedented
attention to golf without making a mockery of the competition.
Woods lived up to the hype, but other players rose to the challenge
of a supremely confident young man who at the Masters made it
seem like he just might win everything.
"I think eventually the excitement is going to take on
a more realistic tone," Tom Lehman said about Tigermania
after the Masters and before the U.S. Open.
"Right now, it's at a point where Tiger Woods is Superman
and everybody else is just a bunch of loyal serfs out there trying
to keep up," Lehman said. "That's not the case at all."
Certainly, Ernie Els, Justin Leonard and Davis Love III proved
the wisdom of Lehman's words.
If Tiger Woods gets an "A" for his first year on
tour, then golf gets an "A-plus."
And if Woods emerged as one of the most compelling athletes
around, golf also emerged from its small corner of the sports
world to take center stage.
Few were ready for what Woods did after turning pro last Aug.
27.
He won in only his fifth tournament, won again two weeks later
and started 1997 by winning the Mercedes in a sudden-death playoff
with Lehman by nearly making a hole-in-one on the first extra
hole.
Still, no one was prepared for what Woods did at the Masters.
After shooting a 40 on the first nine, he played the final 63
holes 22 under par.
Woods was the youngest Masters winner, shot the lowest 72-hole
score since the tournament started in 1934 and had the widest
winning margin in a major championship since the 1862 British
Open.
And his victory was pushed from the sports pages to the news
pages by the fact that Woods, whose father is black and mother
is from Thailand, won at a club where, until very recently, only
the caddies were black.
All in all, Woods has won six times in his 25 PGA Tour events
since turning pro. He has already broken the single-season money
record.
There were bumps along the way.
He blew off the Haskins Award dinner, where he was to be honored
as the nation's top collegiate golfer, and ended up apologizing.
He could have handled the Fuzzy Zoeller situation better, but
was certainly not to blame for Zoeller's offensive remarks after
Woods' Masters victory.
It would have been nice if Woods had participated in ceremonies
marking the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color
barrier in baseball. And there is no reason he should hesitate
even for a minute to sign golf balls for Billy Andrade's charity
auction.
And his confidence at times rubbed other players the wrong
way.
"He's making it sound like he's the only one," Faxon
said after Woods remarked that he won the Byron Nelson with his
"C-plus game."
"It's the mark of a champion to win tournaments without
having everything together," Faxon said.
Good point. Woods listened and quit grading himself after that.
As for golf, Woods had trouble on difficult driving courses,
as shown by the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA. His impatience
resulted in too many double, triple and even quadruple bogeys.
Woods' greatest strength and his greatest weakness could be
the same thing -- he believes he can do anything. Several times
that led to big numbers on holes when he tried to hit the hero
shot instead of the wise shot.
But it is that bit of Arnold Palmer go-for-it-all in Woods
that makes him even more compelling.
Woods still misses greens long too often and is erratic on
short putts.
But nearly everything Woods did wrong in his first year as
a pro stemmed from one very fixable flaw -- he is 21 years old.
The things he did right stemmed from one indisputable fact
-- he is the most physically skilled player ever to swing a golf
club.
He may also want greatness more than anyone.
"I love to play golf, simple as that," Woods said.
"I absolutely love to play. Whether it's with my pop back
home, playing with my friends, playing in tournaments, I just
love to play."
With barely a pause Woods then tacked on the final component
that makes him so special.
"And I love to compete even more," he said. "So
you put those two things together and you have the combination
that's me."
And if Year 1 of the Tiger was any indication, golf's record
book could contain blank pages waiting for Woods to fill them
in.
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