Just like he does it in the commercial
By JIM LITKE
AP Sports Writer
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- Tiger Woods will not win the PGA Championship.
This is neither a fact nor a dare, since he was at 2-under
after three rounds, within a not insurmountable five strokes of
co-leaders Steve Stricker and Vijay Singh going into Sunday. Instead,
think of it as just one more reminder of how tough it is for one
player to dominate golf, how all the talent in the world and almost
as much hard work only goes so far in a game in which 75 or so
competitors are arrayed against you every weekend.
This tournament will mark the seventh straight major Woods
hasn't won since he embarrassed the field while winning the 1997
Masters and created a set of expectations that only his commercials
have lived up to so far. And yet, because each of his rounds still
produce a few moments his fellow pros need special effects to
pull off, people still have difficulty cutting the kid a break.
Woods shot even-par 70 Saturday -- nothing short of miraculous
considering the way he started. He didn't hit a green in regulation
until No. 4, and how he managed that is a story in itself.
Woods had wrestled his hook to a standoff through the first
three holes -- birdie, bogey, par (saved by a nerve-wracking 18-foot
putt from the fringe) -- but it definitely got the upper hand
on the fourth tee. There, his 2-iron shot rocketed 200 yards down
the fairway before turning left faster and more furiously than
a race car taking the first corner in the Indy 500.
By the time Woods and caddie Fluff Cowan arrived at the ball,
a six-deep crowd had already rearranged itself into a narrow tunnel
running the 40 yards from the rough to the fairway. Nike founder
and CEO Phil Knight, who was following his $40 million man around,
stopped at the edge and looked on in amazement. From where he
stood, Woods was just a rumor.
"This," Knight said, turning to a companion, "looks
just like our ad."
And just like he does in that very same ad, Woods sent a shot
whistling down the corridor, this real-life version finally coming
to rest on the front of the green. The applause ricocheted off
the trees lining both sides of the fairway, buffeting Woods as
he walked to the putting surface. Once there, he needed two more
very unremarkable putts for par.
After the round, someone asked Cowan how Woods had pulled off
the spectacular recovery. His answer provided a clue to just how
routine such shots seem to him after dragging the kid's bag to
all kind of exotic golf course locales round after round after
round.
"Pitching wedge," Cowan said, "He had 118 yards
to the front."
Woods was not much more impressed.
"I knew if I could get the ball out somewhere around the
green, I'd make the putt or chip and get up and down. If you're
not hitting it well, you just have to rely on your short game
and understand that par is not a bad score. From there,"
he said, "it's just a matter of somehow finding your groove
and giving yourself some chances."
Plenty has been made about Woods relying less and less on the
hero shot and playing more conservatively as he makes his way
out on tour. And in that vein, he has yet to take the head cover
off his driver at Sahalee. His ability to hit the ball farther
than everybody else in the field, especially with the driver,
is proving to be of very little advantage in the majors, in which
the fairways are choked with rough at the outer reaches of his
tee shots. Woods keeps insisting it doesn't bug him, which in
these days of grip-it-and-hit-it pros would make him unusually
patient, incredibly so for a 22-year-old.
"Tomorrow, the magic numbers are 14 and 18. Fourteen fairways
and 18 greens. If I do that, I like my chances."
The truth is he could probably hit 14 fairways and all 18 greens
and not make up the distance to the top of the leaderboard. But
if the rest of us are going to continue to hold him to a higher
standard, we're also going to have to be patient enough to give
him time to learn to play this game more like everybody else does.
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