Yes, Tiger Woods is human
By Bill Lyon
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
PHILADELPHIA - Tiger Woods did not win a golf tournament. This
now qualifies as news.
You know you have arrived when you give a performance everyone
else would kill for but on you looks like flaming failure. Like,
say, Michael Jordan scoring only 40. Or Ken Griffey Jr. hitting
only doubles.
Woods finally has had a round when he wandered out of the 60s,
finally has had a round when he failed to make a mockery of par,
finally has had a round when he needed birdie and made an eminently
human double bogey instead, finally has had a round when he finished
fourth, not first.
And here's the salient point: There is not so much as a moan
of sympathy from his peers. There is, in fact, private rejoicing
and gloating.
"I don't feel sorry for him," said David Frost, who
won the Colonial tournament.
Nor should he. But you could sense the relief on the part of
many of the touring pros when Tiger Woods was denied his third
straight win. And out of public view, in the players lounge, you
can bet there were more than a few clenched fists and triumphant
cries of: "Yessssss!"
Tiger may be introducing the 100,000-person gallery to golf,
he may be winning converts to the sport, and he may be luring
a whole new generation of fans. But he is also creating some barely
concealed envy and resentment among his colleagues.
Given the human condition, this was all probably inevitable.
Some of it is simple small-minded pettiness on their part and
some of it is youthful, unthinking lack of humility on Tiger's
part.
First of all, the game isn't nearly as simple as he makes it
look. Well, not for the rest of them, anyway. After he swallowed
the field and the scoring records at the Masters, he took a four-week
break, signed on with yet another fat sugar daddy sponsor, and
then came back cold and won the first tournament he entered. That
was jaw-dropping enough, but then he said he had won without his
"A game."
He marked himself down for a C-plus. Hearing that, the other
pros ground their teeth.
Actually, it was impulsive on his part, something he blurted
out without thinking how it might sound, how it might be interpreted.
He was being ingenuous. He didn't mean to demean those he had
beaten; he meant only to express pleasure that he had been able
to find a way to win without his best stuff. It is, after all,
what has always separated the very best from the very good.
But if you're one of those whose clock is always being cleaned,
to hear that the player who flogged you did so with an effort
that he rated as no better than average, well, that can be not
only pride-pricking, but you can interpret it as cocky crowing
on the prodigy's part.
After the second round of the Colonial, what the players had
been saying among themselves became public. Brad Faxon, an unassuming
and usually reserved sort, brought in an 11-under par scorecard
and proclaimed, to gusts of laughter: "I didn't have my A
game today. It was a C-minus. I'm flying in my coaches tomorrow."
Faxon had talked with Woods as far back as December, suggesting
diplomatically that the prodigy might not be aware how he was
being perceived by his peers as he thrashed them regularly while
denigrating his own play.
"I told him if he wants to have people like him, he has
to watch that," Faxon said.
Faxon has a reputation of sincerity. He is well-meaning. He
is also in awe of Woods. He realizes what the prodigy can do for
the game. Much of the muttering Woods hears he can, and should,
dismiss as transparent jealousy. But he should take Faxon's words
to heart.
For his part, Tiger Woods had snapped this retort: "I
was just telling the truth. I was raised to tell the truth. If
I'm asked a question, I'm going to answer it straightforward."
If he felt stung, it was understandable.
After Sunday's round of 72, he issued a statement rather than
appear in the media tent. "You don't need me; I didn't win,"
he said.
But of course he has reached that status already where he will
always be needed by the media. Just as Jack Nicklaus, for so many
years, was needed whether he was shooting 65 or 75. He was needed
to offer perspective and analysis.
Tiger Woods will one day reach such elder statesman status.
For now, though, he is the boy genius. He is only 21 and should
be forgiven the occasional brash-sounding remark. Who among us
does not say foolish, unthinking things, even when we are twice
Tiger's age? Or triple?
At the same time, Tiger needs to learn to weigh every word
before exhaling it. Every sentence will have to be tempered. And
even then there will be those who will resent his success. He
cannot do much about them, except try to refrain from wasting
his passion on them.
Statesmanship and diplomacy will be expected from here on out.
Actually, up to now he has done remarkably well in those areas.
Faxon said he empathizes with Woods' plight. Admittedly, "plight"
may seem a strange word to use to describe someone so immensely
talented, someone so immensely wealthy, someone so immensely successful,
and all so soon.
But celebrityhood comes with a dear cost.
Faxon said something very perceptive: "You don't want
to isolate yourself from everybody. I think his superstardom is
making him that way, whether he wants it to or not. He's going
to be with us a long time. I want to get along with him, and so
does everyone else."
Golf isn't nearly as easy as Tiger Woods makes it look, and
being Tiger Woods isn't nearly as easy as that looks, either.
X X X
(Bill Lyon is a sports columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Write to him at: The Philadelphia Inquirer, 400 North Broad Street,
Philadelphia, Pa. 19130.)
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