Until U.S. Open, everything is just practice
for Tiger
By LORNE RUBENSTEIN
Toronto Globe and Mail
Tiger Woods didn't come close to winning the Memorial Tournament,
shooting even-par 288 in the event that ended Sunday. But Woods
didn't mind, according to his coach Butch Harmon.
Woods, Harmon said, wasn't really playing the Memorial. He
was preparing for the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.
According to Harmon, who teaches golf in Henderson, Nev., Woods
was hitting shots which would help him at the U.S. Open, more
than he was worrying about how he fared at the Memorial.
"Tiger's thoughts are all on Olympic now," Harmon
said from his school yesterday. "How he does at the Memorial
or the Kemper (the next PGA Tour event, in Potomac, Md.) is immaterial
to him. His desire is to be the greatest player who ever lived,
and that means winning majors. Tiger knows that a player is judged
on how many majors he wins."
Harmon was only being honest there. And you can say the same
about Woods whether or not you think he's being arrogant in fast-forwarding
to majors rather than focusing on current events. Woods said something
similar during the Players Championship in March, when he was
anticipating the Masters.
Woods tied for 35th at the Players, then never contended at
the Masters, where he had received a death threat via the Internet.
Woods tied for eighth at the Masters. His plan of "dying"
putts into the hole (rolling them softly toward the hole rather
than hitting them with speed) at the Players to prepare for Augusta
National's severely undulating and insanely fast greens didn't
pay off. But Woods and Harmon still feel preparation is preferable
to playing without a prior program.
This isn't to say Woods doesn't try to win a tournament if
he gets into contention. Of course he does. But it's almost as
if winning is secondary to preparing for the next major.
"If Tiger ever contends at the Players it could almost
be an accident," Harmon said. "His whole mindset there
is geared towards Augusta."
And now it's geared toward Olympic, where the rough will be
high and the course will probably play longer than its 6,800 yards
because of expected dampness. Woods has been working on hitting
the ball high as well as long to keep it in the fairways rather
than rolling through.
Harmon said recently that Woods will win the U.S. Open because
he will hit more drivers than he did at the Congressional Country
Club Bethesda, Md. last year. That's a bold prediction.
"I willingly took all the blame last year for Tiger not
doing well at the U.S. Open," Harmon said. Woods tied for
19th, 10 shots behind winner Ernie Els. "It was my decision
that he hit irons instead of drivers on a lot of holes. But Tiger
is a good driver. And I'd rather see him drive it a long ways
and get nearer the green even if he is in the rough."
Woods has been hitting lots of drivers and trying to be precise
with his irons to prepare for Olympic's small targets. And while
he hasn't been that accurate, he did win the BellSouth Classic
in Atlanta three weeks ago after working with Harmon there. He
won with his short game, all the while preparing for Olympic and
looking back at the Masters.
"I wish my win (at the BellSouth) was three weeks before,"
Woods said after the Atlanta tournament. The Masters was three
weeks before.
Then at the Byron Nelson Classic two weeks ago, Woods said
his goals for the rest of this year were "very simple. I
would like my game to peak three more times. That's about it."
Those times are at the U.S. Open, the British Open in July
and the PGA Championship in August. Other events are incidental
by comparison.
"Tiger is astonished at Jack Nicklaus's record in the
majors," Harmon said. "It's not only his wins but how
many times he finished second." Nicklaus won 20 majors, including
his two U.S. Amateurs, and finished second or tied for second
18 times.
If Woods wants to be the greatest player ever, then he has
to beat Nicklaus's record. It's hard to believe he will, but who
knows?
"If you tell Tiger he can't do something, then he gets
pumped up," Harmon said. "He's read often enough that
he can't win a U.S. Open because he's not accurate enough. But
he thinks he can."
The U.S. Open begins June 18th. But it started for Woods the
moment he walked off the last green at the Masters. How's that
for chutzpah, and for thinking ahead?
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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