Bobby Jones is spinning in his grave over what
Tiger did
By PAUL FINEBAUM
Scripps Howard News Service
AUGUSTA, Ga. - The sound heard early Sunday evening was not
the whispering wind gently brushing against the tall Georgia pines
in Amen Corner.
Interestingly, it was not the roar of a Tiger, either.
Instead, the shaking of the Earth at this most halcyon hamlet
on the globe came all the way from nearby Atlanta.
The crashing sound came from 6 feet under the tombstone of
Bobby Jones, who founded Augusta National and helped design the
most famous golf course in the world.
Mr. Jones didn't just turn over in his grave Sunday after Tiger
Woods made mincemeat of his pristine golf course and of this most
exquisite golf tournament by breaking the course record shared
by Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd.
Instead, Mr. Jones probably spun out of control.
His masterpiece was brutalized by Tiger Woods. This place might
never be viewed the same again.
This might be the only Masters in history where on the day
after the tournament, the golf course needs a psychiatrist instead
of the competitors.
Charlie Yates, an affable 83-year-old Augusta National member,
was asked what his dear friend, Bobby Jones, would have thought
of Woods' destruction of the course that the great man built.
"Unbelievable," Yates said, suggesting the late,
great golfer would have been proud for Woods.
Sure. You bet. And Michelangelo would like to see the Sistine
Chapel repainted.
Nike, which is paying Woods $60 million to wear its swoosh
on his hat, is best known for the slogan: "Just do it."
Its new slogan could be a picture of Tiger wearing a green
jacket with a swoosh on the breast pocket, saying: "I did
it."
What Woods has done is blasphemous to the gods of golf. Even
Nicklaus, who did it once himself, shrugged his shoulders when
someone asked him if he would be present Sunday afternoon for
the coronation of golf's new king.
"Why do I need to see that?" Nicklaus said, meaning
no disrespect.
Nicklaus said last year that Tiger might win 10 green jackets.
Everyone said at the time that Nicklaus was crazy.
And they were right.
Tiger might win 20.
In 20 years, he will only be 41. Nicklaus won his last green
jacket at the age of 46.
By then, Tiger might have taken up another sport. It's hard
to see how golf can stay very entertaining to him for that long.
There is some good news in the Tiger-mania. If Tiger continues
to humiliate the field here in the future the way he did this
year, Masters tickets will become easier to obtain.
This Masters was exciting. This Masters was historical. But
only because of Tiger.
However, after a while, the Bill Murray/Groundhog Day effect
will wear thin.
Next year, we will be seeing double and then triple.
The Masters pool will be relegated to who comes in second.
Perhaps, as in T-ball, they'll have to put in a 10-shot rule.
Perhaps they'll make Tiger play with only four clubs in his bag.
Or left-handed. Of course, Tiger probably still would win by five
strokes.
Tiger's boom will be great for golf ... for a while.
The hopes for the other players must rely on Tiger finding
a girlfriend. Anything to get his focus off golf.
Historians are loving it, though. One here already has compared
Tiger's ascension to Secretariat, who won horse racing's Triple
Crown in 1973 by a country mile.
But that's not really fair. Secretariat was a mere animal.
What Tiger did over four days in Augusta was superhuman. Are we
sure he didn't arrive on Hale-Bopp?
It often has been said that time never stands still. However,
that never was true at Augusta, where time never has moved.
Well, it moved Sunday - along with the Earth. The past became
the present and the future became Tiger Woods.
(Paul Finebaum writes for The Post-Herald in Birmingham, Ala.)
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