Sunday, July 23, 2000
Tiger sits on top of golf mountain
By HUBERT MIZELL
St. Petersburg Times
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Muhammad Ali
had Joe Frazier. Affirmed kept surviving Alydar. Martina Navratilova
was pushed repeatedly by Chris Evert. Jack Nicklaus was inspired
from spirited chases by Lee Trevino and Tom Watson.
Rivalries do stimulate.
Tiger Woods soars alone in championship
heaven. He reigns in the PGA, U.S. and British Opens. Grand Slammer
at 24. Pulverizing, even embarrassing, over-matched contemporaries.
No neighbors on Tiger Mountain.
“It's sad the way we all back off when
Tiger's name pops onto leader boards,” said Sweden's Thomas
Bjorn, one of Sunday's far-flung British Open runners-up. “Woods
is a great talent, but nobody should be constantly killing all
comers in the majors.”
David Duval, a non-threatening No. 2 to
Tiger in world rankings, began to give invigorating head-to-head
pursuit of Woods. Seven holes of heroic hope, making four birdies
and missing by centimeters on the other three. Gallery murmuring.
Impressive prod, it seemed.
Numero Uno didn't blink. Woods wouldn't
quiver. What, him worry? Eventually another faux rival was burned
at Tiger's stake. By the end, Duval was no factor and miserable.
Woods bossed last month's U.S. Open by 15 strokes, now it's an
8-shot stranglehold on the British.
Holy walkovers.
A few weeks ago, Hal Sutton proclaimed,
“Nobody's that good,” but the Louisiana chap quickly
faded as Tiger's star got brighter. Ernie Els talked fight, having
been runner-up to Vijay Singh at the Masters and Woods at the
U.S. Open, but Big Easy found Tiger too hard again, limping home
in never-a-chance second place at St. Andrews.
Ernie going for the Avis Slam.
Duval was all but bleeding. Another so-called
rival perishing in Tiger's shadow. To punctuate David's doom,
he needed four whacks to extract his errant golf ball from the
Road Bunker at the Old Course's nasty 17th hole. Stumbling to
quadruple-bogey 8.
Painful to watch.
That deep and deadly trap, nicknamed the
“The Sands of Nakajima” when Japanese golfer Tommy Nakajima
blew his chance there in the 1978 Open, might also be termed “The
Dunes of Duval.”
For him, the last insult.
After pulling within three of Woods after
seven holes, Duval lost by 12. From semi-challenging, David crumbled
to 43 on the closing nine, plunging to a tie for 11th.
Not the only ugliness.
As the Woods-Duval pairing walked to the
18th, cheers for Tiger were high-decibel Scottish music for a
kid Grand Slammer who keeps devouring competition.
Over-stimulated spectators began leaping
a burn (creek) to get better views. Dozens of them. Overwhelmed,
panicky security forces tackled several and threw them back into
the water.
David too was wet.
As they approached the green, Duval and
Woods saw more than screaming patrons, stampeding interlopers
and the R&A clubhouse. A woman with no clothes, the weekend's
second streaker as Tiger was completing a round, bounded from
the masses and began dancing around the flagstick.
Golfers weren't amused.
“That's so ridiculous, so low class,”
Woods said. “That was a moment I will forever treasure, winning
the British Open, completing the Grand Slam at the birthplace
of golf; then we see stuff that nobody should feel good about.”
Duval felt rotten. His slide over the final
seven holes, a 7-over-par mess, with his grainy grave of humiliation
at the 17th, surely riddled a proud athletic heart.
Tiger understood. In his moment of triumph,
Woods felt heavy compassion for his well-whipped buddy. “I
whispered to David, 'You're a true champion. We will have numerous
battles,' “ Woods said.
'Walk away from this with your head up,
like a champion.' He did. I'm really proud of David Duval.”
Tiger greatness with grace.
Perhaps the PGA Tour should rewrite its
well-trumpeted slogan, making it “That guy is good.”
Against the thoroughbred Woods, the also-rans are looking like
mules.
“It's good to be pushed,” said
Nicklaus, the Tiger Woods of his generation. “It can make
a strong player even better. Tiger needs that. It'll happen, but
maybe from some 10-year-old kid who's watching on TV. Like years
ago, when Nick Faldo saw me doing well and decided to take up
golf.”
Still young, Woods camps among legends,
having won all four Grand Slam tournaments, wizardry accomplished
by Nicklaus, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan.
Tiger, with his four major championships,
is well shy of Jack's mighty 18. “If he eventually wins more
than me,” Nicklaus said, “I hope I'm around to shake
Tiger's hand. Right now, there seems none who are well armed enough
to consistently take him on.”
Woods possesses the U.S. Open, PGA and British
Open championships all at once. Nobody has worn all three crowns
at the same time since Jack ruled the 1971 PGA as well as the
1972 Masters and U.S. Open.
In this historically whitest of sports,
men of color are today champs of all four majors, Singh having
the Masters and Woods everything else. Singh, of Indian heritage,
grew up in Fiji. “Times,” Tiger said, “they are
changing.”
Although a feisty, indelible Woods rival
would be entertaining, you wonder how high Tiger can be prodded.
He won a Masters by more strokes than anybody (1997), flattened
U.S. Open aspirants by more shots and wins a British Open in the
most lopsided romp since 1913.
Woods can be pushed only by Tiger.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service,
http://www.shns.com.)
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