Wednesday, July 19, 2000
One champion saw Tiger's promise early
By Jimmy Burch
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
FORT WORTH — Hail him as a visionary. Discount his comment
as premature hyperbole. Either stance, at this juncture, is acceptable.
But don't accuse Peter Thomson, a five-time British Open champion,
of piling on in the rush to project Tiger Woods as the youngest
golfer to complete a career grand slam.
Woods, 24, can capture his fourth major championship at this week's
British Open. If he hoists the claret jug Sunday on the Old Course
in St. Andrews, Scotland, Woods will have won each of golf's major
titles one time. He will join Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gene Sarazen
and Gary Player as the only players to hit for the cycle in professional
golf.
By doing so, he would fulfill the predictions of countless Tiger
praisers who have overloaded the bandwagon since Woods won the
U.S. Open by a startling 15 strokes June 18. And he'd make a prophet
of Thomson, who uttered these words in 1997:
“I think he would win every time on the Old Course at St.
Andrews,” Thomson said after watching Woods finish 24th in
the 1997 British Open, his first professional appearance at golf's
oldest major championship. “Better get a bet down on him
for 2000. I could see him going around in 64 every day. I think
he'll win by a mile.”
Three years later, Thomson's sentiment is the prevailing one in
professional golf circles. If Woods plays St. Andrews with the
same focus and flair he exhibited last month at Pebble Beach Golf
Links, he'll make Thomson's observation the most valuable potential
investment tip since Bill Gates alerted friends he was launching
a computer software venture called Microsoft.
Roll back the calendar to the summer of 1997, when Woods began
retooling his swing and triggered a stretch where he won one PGA
Tour event in 17 months, and you could have gotten 100-1 odds
against him winning the 2000 British Open. Maybe 200-1.
Now, he's an even-money proposition, with 12 victories in his
past 22 starts at tour events. He's won two of the past three
majors.
And he's clearly smitten with the notion of a slam-clinching victory
at St. Andrews, the course where the first documented round of
golf was played in 1552.
“There's no better site to have it occur than at the home
of golf,” Woods said. “That's where it all started.
Every person who has ever played the game has wanted to win a
British Open at St. Andrews ... If I could somehow be fortunate
enough to play well and get that claret jug, it would be a good
feeling. That's something I would love to have happen.
“To win major championships in the same year at Pebble Beach
and St. Andrews, it doesn't get much better than that.”
The topper, of course, would be achieving a career grand slam
— and golf immortality — at 24, two years younger than
Nicklaus.
For anyone else, surpassing the Golden Bear would rank as a daunting
mental stumbling block. For Woods, it's par for the course.
Woods, at 24, already has 20 victories on the PGA Tour. Nicklaus,
at the same age, had 12. Woods has won major championships by
15 and 12 strokes, two of the three biggest landslides in golf
history. Nicklaus never lapped an elite field by more than nine
strokes, his winning margin at the 1965 Masters.
If nothing else, Woods has shown a flair for the dramatic while
dominating professional golf for the past 14 months. That's why
St. Andrews — with its wide fairways, driveable par-4 greens
and unmatched history — seems the perfect backdrop for Woods
to etch his name into golf lore by becoming the fifth player to
complete a career grand slam.
Before the first shot is fired at the 2000 British Open, there
is a thick air of inevitability about its outcome.
“If Tiger doesn't win at St. Andrews, there should be a stewards'
inquiry,” said Sir Michael Bonallack, former administrator
of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.
“Tiger is playing better than he ever has,” said Butch
Harmon, Woods' instructor. “His swing ... is pretty easy
to tweak if something goes wrong. If he plays good golf, he's
going to win.”
If history unfolds at St. Andrews, remember that Peter Thomson
told you so. And he did it three years before the rest of the
golf world joined the chorus.
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