Wednesday, August 23, 2000
Woods gives imaginations a workout
By Ron Green Jr.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
The great ones have always forced us to change the way we think.
Michael Jordan. Pele. Picasso.
They made us believe what we had trouble imagining before they
arrived.
And now Tiger Woods has stretched our imaginations to psychedelic
corners where they've never gone with a golfer.
Just when we thought he couldn't get any better than he had been
at Pebble Beach or St. Andrews, Woods showed us we were wrong
again.
He made eight birdies in a 13-hole stretch when he absolutely,
positively had to have them to chase down and, finally, beat the
suddenly magnificent Bob May to win the PGA Championship Sunday
at Valhalla.
Tiger Woods makes dreams come true.
We're witness to a stretch of unmatched brilliance.
It would be even better if someone had the game and the nerve
to make it tougher on Tiger but — with the exception of May
— so far that hasn't happened.
The invisible faces behind the logos on tour talk about not backing
down but use their inside voices when they do.
Jack Nicklaus spent the first two days of the PGA Championship
playing with Woods, fulfilling a personal desire to see the man
who might eventually break his records up close when the heat
is on.
Nicklaus has the unique perspective of understanding what Woods
is doing, having done essentially the same thing himself for so
many years.
Imagine Beethoven and Chopin talking treble clefs and quarter-notes.
Seeing Woods at his best, Nicklaus was able to understand how
other players felt when his hair was long and blond and every
championship that mattered seemed to have his name on it.
Until last week, though, Nicklaus didn't fully appreciate the
scorched-earth effect Woods has had on the PGA Tour.
“I kept saying, `I can't understand why we don't have anybody
else playing that well,'” Nicklaus said. “I'm sort of
understanding why they aren't. He is that much better.”
No one has ever been this good and this much better than everyone
else, not even Nicklaus.
“He has raised the bar higher than anybody has ever raised
it,” Tom Watson said of Woods.
“He seems like he is the only kid who can jump over it right
now.”
Nicklaus wondered aloud how much better Woods might get. That's
the tantalizing unknown about the next few years.
The day will come when Tiger breaks 60 in a tournament.
The question is how low he will go.
Friends say he believes he's capable of shooting in the mid-50s.
We've learned to never say never with Tiger.
Woods has places he can go with his mind and his golf swing where
no one else has ventured.
“He is better than I thought he was and I am pleasantly surprised
by that,” Nicklaus said.
What impressed Nicklaus was how Woods controls himself and, by
extension, the golf course.
“He is doing it with so much left in him, so much more power
to use, not burn,” Nicklaus said.
Woods can overpower golf courses and, at times, he does. More
often, though, he breaks them down shot by shot, like he's deconstructing
them. For all his power, Woods is a master of finessing golf courses,
hitting a soft little cut shot under the hole or floating a high
draw into a tight pin.
At the British Open, he delighted in telling the story of how
he intentionally hit a 2-yard draw with a 3-wood. You hope your
surgeon is so precise.
He's like a great painter who doesn't overdo the color.
Rather than splash it all over the canvas, Woods uses a little
bit here, a little there until suddenly he's created a masterpiece.
He's painting Mona Lisas and making all other golfers look like
they're painting houses.
Some soulless people have suggested if Woods keeps winning every
tournament he plays, it might somehow become boring, a negative
drain on the game and the world's biggest star.
Those same people probably see full moons and rainbows like they're
dull wallpaper.
Preseason NFL games are boring. August is boring. Turkey sandwiches
are boring.
But not Tiger Woods.
Never.
(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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