Sunday, June 18, 2000
Tiger Woods' challengers still
hiding
By Ron Green Jr.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. - The question isn't
how good Tiger Woods is.
He has spent the first three days of this
off-kilter U.S. Open showing us.
He's nuked 220-yard 7-irons onto par-5 greens.
He's holed enough putts to stretch halfway around 17-Mile Drive.
And, he has turned this Open into golf's
version of Nixon versus McGovern.
Woods isn't perfect. He barked a blue streak
into the NBC microphones when he pull-hooked his tee shot into
the water on the 18th hole Saturday morning, and there was that
nasty triple-bogey at the third hole that kept hope alive for
everyone else on the leader board.
The question is where have all his challengers
gone.
Not just this week but every week.
This week they've been hacking and chopping
their way around the same Pebble Beach golf course Woods has manhandled.
In fairness, some guys caught a bad break with the weather, playing
through fog one day and wind the next while Woods had the good
fortune to avoid both through the first two rounds.
That doesn't change the fact that everyone
from David Duval to Phil Mickelson to amateur Ricky Barnes came
into this week with one eye on Woods - whether they wanted to
admit it or not.
And while they watched, they saw Woods overwhelm
them again.
What we're seeing, of course, is the kind
of greatness that doesn't come along very often.
Woods does things others can't. When he
makes a mistake, he recovers as he did with his brilliant third
shot from a world of trouble at the sixth hole Saturday, turning
a bogey into a birdie.
When he hits a good shot, he cashes in.
Time after time.
But where is everyone else?
"It wasn't but about three years ago
we all as players were saying those days when somebody was going
to kick our butts were gone," Paul Azinger said. "But
you know what? They've returned with a vengeance."
Mickelson has come the closest to matching
Woods' play but until he wins a major championship, he's still
on a different level. To his credit, Mickelson has done a good
job this week playing his way back into the edge of contention
after a poor start. But he's now 0-for-32 in majors.
Duval keeps talking about how well he's
playing, sounding suspiciously like a man trying to convince himself
of something. Then he says, "it's not a fair comparison,
comparing Tiger and me." And he's supposedly the second-best
player in the world, riding a 14-month winless streak.
Colin Montgomerie is a mirage in this country.
Davis Love III looks like a man who needs his mind pressure-washed.
Ernie Els plays well - he's captured this tournament twice - but
doesn't win often here.
Hal Sutton stood up to Tiger at The Players
Championship. Vijay Singh won the Masters and hangs around the
top of leader boards like he lives there.
And Jesper Parnevik looked ready to make
a move toward Woods.
With rare exception, though, Woods owns
them. Look at his victories in the second half of last year and
who finished second. He beat Singh at the Memorial; Sergio Garcia
at the PGA; Mickelson at the NEC Championship; Els at the National
Car Rental Classic; and, Love at the Tour Championship.
"The crazy thing about it is the other
good players don't seem to be stepping up to the plate as much,"
Tom Kite said. "You win by playing really well. But you also
win some when people don't play up to their potential when you're
right there."
This year, Woods had broken par in 33 of
38 tournament rounds before Saturday.
He never goes away. The others do.
"Are there more guys that can be at
the top of their game? Either that or he 's so far above them
that he's making everybody else look not very good.
That can be. But I think only time is going
to tell that," Jack Nicklaus said.
Time may say a lot. Almost all of it about
Woods.
(c) 2000, The Charlotte Observer
(Charlotte, N.C.).
Visit The Charlotte Observer on the World Wide Web at http://www.charlotte.com/
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