Sunday, June 18, 2000
Woods drops the hammer on the
rest of the field, building a 10-shot lead
By Eric Gilmore
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PEBBLE BEACH—The 100th U.S. Open in
the year 2000 at Pebble Beach has turned into Tiger Woods' coronation
as the king of golf, a reign that could last long into the new
millennium.
Woods arrived at Pebble early Saturday morning
with a three-shot lead over Miguel Angel Jimenez. By the time
he finished the final six holes of his suspended second round
and completed his third round, Woods owned a 10-shot lead over
Ernie Els, the largest 54-hole lead in U.S. Open history.
Woods is at 8-under-par 205 after shooting
69 in the second round and even-par 71 in the third round. Everyone
else is over par for the championship.
Three years ago at Augusta, Woods won the
Masters with a record score of 14-under 270 and by a record margin
of 12 shots. Today, Woods will continue his assault on the U.S.
Open record book.
Woods is on pace to shatter the U.S. Open
record for largest margin of victory of 11 shots set in 1899 by
Willie Smith. If he shoots 67 today, he'll tie the U.S. Open record
for lowest winning score of 272, set by Jack Nicklaus in 1980
and matched by Lee Janzen in 1993. Nicklaus and Janzen were a
record 8 under par those years, a mark Woods could crush.
At the Masters three years ago, Woods led
by nine shots entering the final round. Today, he'll try to mirror
the final-round approach he used at Augusta that year.
“You just need to stay in the present
and go out there and work and grind away,” Woods said. “You
cannot let your intensity deplete, and you've got to go out there
and fight all the way through until the last putt is completed.
“That's what I did in `97, and that's
what I've done every time I've had the lead. The bigger the lead,
the more you have to concentratebecause if you give your opponent
some kind of hope, then they could turn the tide and get pretty
close, if not past you.”
Can he be caught?
“Who knows around this place?”
Els said. “I played with one of the world's best players
today, Colin Montgomerie. He played very well. He had two or three
bad holes and shoots 79. Anything can happen out there.”
Tom Lehman said Woods' lead is not “insurmountable”
if someone chasing him gets hot.
“He's obviously the best player in
the field at this time, and it's going to take some great golf
to catch him.
“But it's the kind of course where
even the best players can make some mistakes. Those of us chasing
are going to have to play our best golf and hope he makes a mistake
or two.”
Make that a mistake or 10, which is what
Gil Morgan made in the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble after reaching
12 under early in the third round and building a seven-shot lead.
Woods, though, is no Gil Morgan.
Woods wasn't flawless Saturday. Far from
it, in fact. But despite taking a triple bogey on the par-4 third
hole—yes, he's human—he kept moving farther away from
his closest pursuers as Pebble Beach claimed victim after victim.
In the third round, 16 players shot 80 or
higher, and the average score was 77.124 strokes. Only Els broke
par, shooting a stunning 68 on a windy day when Pebble was exceptionally
nasty.
Woods said when he saw the wind blowing,
he knew shooting par would extend his lead.
“The course is not playing easy out
there,” Woods said. “It's hard to shoot a good number
when it's blowing out there. The greens aren't that smooth, and
the greens are rock hard.”
Woods was 8 under for the championship,
three ahead of Jimenez, when play was suspended because of darkness
at 8:15 p.m. on Friday. He returned to Pebble at 6:30 a.m. Saturday
and played his final six holes of the second round in 1 over,
carding a 69.
When the second round was over, Woods' lead
had doubled to six shots over Jimenez and Thomas Bjorn.
Woods was at 8-under-par 134. His six-shot,
36-hole lead set a U.S. Open record, breaking the mark of five
shots that Willie Anderson set 97 years ago. What's more, Woods'
134 score tied the 36-hole record shared by Nicklaus (1980), T.C.
Chen (1985) and Janzen (1993).
If not for a surprising bogey on the par-5
18th, Woods would have owned that mark alone.
He hooked his drive on 18 over the seawall
and onto the rocks below, touching off a string of expletives
from Woods that NBC's microphones happened to catch for its viewers
to hear.
Woods hit driver again, only this time he
crushed his shot deep and along the right side of the fairway.
Then he reached the green with an iron and two-putted for bogey.
“That's not the way I wanted to finish,
but that's the way it goes sometimes,” Woods said after his
second round. “I got a little angry on that tee, but I managed
to collect myself. At least I didn't kill a lot of the momentum
I had.”
Woods gave those chasing him a glimmer of
hope when he triple-bogeyed the third hole. His approach shot
landed in deep rough, and he needed to take three hacks to reach
the green.
At that point, Woods dropped to 6 under,
five ahead of Jimenez, but it was only a tease. Woods parred the
fifth, then made back-to-back birdies, including a spectacular
one at the par-5 sixth.
After driving into the rough, Woods' second
shot landed in deep rough on the lip of a fairway bunker along
the left fairway. It was an impossible shot, but Woods loves doing
the impossible. With his right foot in the bunker and his left
on the bank, he choked up on his club, chopped down and sent a
high shot into the air and onto the green, eight feet from the
hole.
(c) 2000, Contra Costa Times
(Walnut Creek, Calif.).
Visit the Contra Costa Times on the Web at http://www.cctimes.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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