Tour responds to Tiger's challenge
By RON SIRAK
AP Golf Writer
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The Year of the Tiger has turned
into the Year of the Tour.
On the eve of The Players Championship, and the start of the
major championship season, it seems clear that the best players
in the world have risen to the challenge of Tiger Woods.
Already this year, two of the four winners of majors in 1996
- Masters champion Nick Faldo and U.S. Open title-holder Steve
Jones - have picked up victories.
Mark O'Meara, a two-time winner last year, has won twice in
1997 and Phil Mickelson, in the winner's circle four times in
'96, got back there last week at Bay Hill.
British Open champion Tom Lehman hasn't played a lot but has
played well when he has played and has given every indication
that his Player-of-the-Year season was no fluke.
Davis Love III and Fred Couples are as solid as ever and three
very significant players - Nick Price, Steve Elkington and Payne
Stewart - seem to have regained the form that won six majors among
them.
Greg Norman has played only once on the PGA Tour, but it was
with an impressive 66-68 start at Doral. As has been the case
for the last 15 years, it appears Norman will contend just about
every week he tees it up.
And Ernie Els has muddled around this year, but the South African
has a history of rising and falling like a choppy sea, his enormous
talent always popping back to the surface after each of his down
periods.
A few players have started the year poorly, including PGA champion
Mark Brooks, Steve Stricker, who won $1.4 million last year, and
Corey Pavin, who hasn't finished better than 38th in a full-field
tournament.
But they are in a definite minority of players not to raise
the level of their game in the face of the Tiger challenge.
Woods reconfirmed his greatness by winning the season-opening
Mercedes Championship in a playoff with Lehman and by a second-place
finish at Pebble Beach after a near-miraculous final two rounds.
But no one has rolled over in front of Woods. O'Meara held
him off magnificently at Pebble Beach and in his three other tournaments
Woods has finished ninth, 18th and 20th.
The true test of Tiger begins this week at The Players Championship
when all of the golfers mentioned above are competing in the same
tournament for the first time this year.
Throw in a few foreign stars, like Colin Montgomerie and Bernhard
Langer, and a couple of emerging stars like Paul Stankowski and
Stuart Appleby, and the contest on the Stadium Course at Sawgrass
should easily live up to its reputation as the major before the
majors.
In fact, for the first time in any tournament, all of the top-50
in the world rankings are in the same field.
"Obviously it just shows you what the tournament means
and how important it has become," Faldo said Tuesday before
his practice round was washed out by drenching rain.
"I think that is what everybody wants," he said.
"That is what every player wants every week - to have the
best fields as possible."
One reason The Players Championship gets great fields is because
it is just two weeks removed from the Masters. Everyone is getting
ready for Augusta.
"This is a perfect way to prepare for the major - the
Masters - in a couple of weeks," Woods said Tuesday. "We
have got a great field that we are playing against this week.
It is almost pretty much the identical field at Augusta."
No one in the 21 years this tournament has been played in the
spring has won The Players Championship and then gone on to win
the Masters. But the winner in this event has always been of major
championship quality.
Five of the last six winners at TPC - Couples, Lee Janzen,
Norman, Price and Elkington - have won majors. The lone exception
in that run was Love, who is one of the best in the world not
to have won a major.
If the other tour players relish the challenge of Woods, the
21-year-old is equally eager to show exactly where he stands against
the best in the world.
"I am going to go out there and try to win and see what
happens," Woods said. "I think it is going to be a good
measuring device, see how well you are playing because you are
playing against the best."
Maybe it isn't exactly Tiger Woods against the PGA Tour, but
it is true that the yardstick for greatness Woods is being measured
against is the tallest ever applied to any player.
This week he gets his best test yet since turning pro.
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