Thursday, August 24, 2000
Tiger looking for strong kick
to end of the year
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — Tiger Woods was
so drained after his dynamic duel with Bob May to win the PGA
Championship that he stayed home in Florida an extra day to relax
and recharge his batteries.
For Woods, that meant lying on the couch
with the television remote in hand, going to neighbor Mark O'Meara's
house for tacos — and still finding a little bit of time
to figure out what went wrong last week at Valhalla.
It was a great finish, but not a perfect
one.
“As I said, my two drives were a wonderful
3-wood and driver — 50 yards right and 50 yards left,”
Woods said Wednesday. “So, I had to work on a few things.
That's going back to my swing plane. Just trying to get that a
little bit better.”
Just what everyone else needs.
Woods is coming off perhaps the greatest
summer in golf, winning the last three major championships with
a record score under par. Yet, he is not satisfied.
Woods has finished out of the top 10 only
three times this year, and two have come in his first tournament
after winning majors. The NEC Invitational, a 37-man field that
begins Thursday at Firestone Country Club, should be a little
different.
For one thing, Woods is only four days removed
from a final round in which he played his final 15 holes in 8
under, with birdies on the last two holes to get into a playoff
and then one putt on each of three playoff holes to hold off a
spirited challenge from May.
The stakes at Firestone are high, a $5 million
purse in the World Golf Championship event. And the field is no
slouch, despite Europe changing its rule and eliminating top players
such as Jesper Parnevik and Sergio Garcia.
“It makes things a little bit easier
to adjust and get your mind ready and focused to play in a tournament,
especially in a golf course like this,” Woods said.
A year ago, Woods had a 62 in the third
round to build a five-stroke lead, then hung on for a one-stroke
victory over Phil Mickelson. It was the springboard toward Woods
winning his last four PGA Tour events of the year.
Is he up for an encore?
“The year is not over yet,” he
said. “I still would like to win a few more tournaments this
year and play well. I still need to finish out the season.”
Win or not, Woods has another streak on
the line. Dating to a first-round 73 in the Byron Nelson Classic,
he has played his last 27 rounds on the PGA Tour at par or better.
The record since the tour began keeping such statistics in 1980
is 28, belonging to O'Meara and Craig Stadler.
More than anything, that illustrates the
dominance Woods has enjoyed. The only question is: How long he
can keep it up?
“As long as he wants to, really,”
said Darren Clarke, who beat Woods in the finals of the Match
Play Championship. “He's not going to win every one all the
time. As well as playing well, you need that little bit of luck.
And sometimes, that doesn't happen all the time, no matter how
good you are.”
Thomas Bjorn, a distant runner-up to Woods
in the British Open, thinks otherwise, especially after a player
with so little major championship experience nearly beat him in
the PGA.
“He is by far the best player in the
world, and he does things that nobody else can do,” Bjorn
said. “He's on a confidence ride at the moment that is unbelievable,
and I think that's what makes him stand out that much. But this
won't keep going. He'll run into trouble, and he'll start losing
tournaments.”
Bjorn is among three dozen players who will
have a chance to beat him at Firestone. He also is among five
European players who might not have been here except for a change
in qualifications by his tour.
While the NEC was designed only for Ryder
Cup and Presidents Cup team members, the European tour decided
to send its top 12 from the money list in the non-Ryder Cup years.
Enter players like Bjorn, Phillip Price,
Gary Orr, Paul McGinley and Ian Woosnam. Missing are two players
in the top 15 in the world — Garcia and Parnevik, a two-time
winner on the PGA Tour this year.
Among those who have criticized the change
are Greg Norman. He's not affected by European decisions, but
it was Norman who first proposed a world tour in 1994 with hopes
of bringing the best players together more often.
“I think it's a crying shame,”
Norman said. “This is a World Golf Championship. There are
players that should be in this tournament. And I think there's
got to be some serious dialogue behind the scenes to make sure
that this never happens again.”
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