Tiger: It felt good to be nervous again
By JIM LITKE AP Sports Writer
LEMONT, Ill. (AP) - Tiger Woods said it felt good to be nervous
again. To him, maybe. To the rest of the pros on the PGA Tour,
the news coming out of the Western Open could not have been much
worse.
The kid is focused again. His competitive juices are flowing
again. He is practically unbeatable. Again.
Any hopes that taking a week off would dull Woods' game, his
desire or his confidence were pretty much crushed before the martinis
in the corporate tents alongside the Western Open's 18th green
were chilled.
Woods began Sunday's final round tied with journeyman Loren
Roberts and young lion Justin Leonard at 9-under par. By the 13th
hole, he'd brushed both of them off like just so much lint.
The last serious challenge came from Frank Nobilo, who was
playing two groups ahead. He had back-to-back birdies at Nos.
14 and 15 to reach 11-under, and crouched over a very makeable
18-foot birdie try on the 16th green.
Then came the telltale roar emanating from No. 14. Nobilo didn't
need a TV set to tell him what it meant.
"It's a little like the Seve (Ballesteros) era,"
Nobilo said. "If Seve needed to eagle the last hole, he made
eagle. If he was four behind, he made four birdies in a row.
"You get very few talented players in the world that are
capable of doing that. ... In the short period of time that Tiger's
been a professional, that's the one thing he seems to have shown.
When he's in a position to win," Nobilo added, "he very
rarely goes backward."
For a short period of time, though, Woods was doing exactly
that. Coming out of the Buck Classic two weeks ago, he managed
to break par only once in his last dozen rounds. So he took a
week off, left the clubs in the garage and threw a fishing line
in a pond near his Orlando, Fla., home.
That he came back to win - and win easily - after that kind
of preparation stunned pretty much everybody. Except Woods himself.
"If I play my normal game, I should be able to win,"
he said. "I think my game is good enough to where I can do
that. The biggest thing is to have the mindset and the belief
that you can win going into every tournament.
"That's where a lot of guys have their faults. They don't
have that confidence. Nicklaus had it. Every time he'd tee it
up, he felt he was going to beat everybody. That's the mindset
you have to have," Woods said, "if you want to be able
to win."
No matter what golfers say on the way up, backsliding is practically
an occupational hazard. Few of them truly find the perch at the
top of their sport a comfortable one. Nicklaus did - for nearly
two decades. Hogan, Palmer, Watson, Ballesteros - each had his
decade.
But staying power has become an increasingly rare commodity.
Nick Faldo looked to be the best golfer in the world at the start
of the 1990s, but the sense now is that he picks his spots. Ditto
for Greg Norman.
Fred Couples arrived at the throne in 1992, the year he won
three times, including the Masters, but couldn't wait to get off.
Nick Price claimed it the following season and held on through
1994, amassing nine Tour victories and a British Open. Then the
endorsements and the corporate outings piled up in his lap and
the tipped him over, too.
Woods apparently has no problems handling all those things.
No one since Nicklaus has shouldered the weight of expectations
with such ease. His biggest threat seems to be burnout, something
that so far Woods has staved off simply by spending a week without
his golf clubs nearby. That's why, when Woods climbed into contention
at the Western, he knew a case of nerves was a harbinger of things
to come.
"It felt great because it means I'm right there. Yeah,
I felt the butterflies, definitely the churning inside. It felt
good to be in that position," he said, "because that's
what it's all about."
Plenty of Woods' fellow pros talk bravely about wanting to
know that same feeling. They talk about how impossible it is to
win week in and week out, and about how they plan to raise their
games to his level. But right now that's all it is: talk.
What Tom Weiskopf said after years of eating Nicklaus' dust
could be said by every one of Woods' competitors about him: "He
knows he's going to beat you. You know he's going to beat you.
And he knows you know he's going to beat you."
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