Sunday, June 18, 2000
Woods needs to put tongue in
ball-washer
By Skip Bayless
Chicago Tribune
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — On the West
Coast it was Saturday-morning cartoon hour. No doubt kids from
Seattle to San Diego tuned in to see one of their favorite superheroes,
Tiger, beat up the bad guys from Spain and Sweden.
Around 8 a.m. Pacific time, Tiger Woods
was finishing his Friday round. A birdie at the par-5 18th could
increase his lead to eight shots at the U.S Open's halfway point.
Once again Woods tried to bring a three-shot hole for everyone
else to its two-shot knees. No play-safe 3-wood for him. Woods
unleashed his driver.
But he pulled the trigger too quickly, double-crossing
his tee shot, turning the intended power fade into a pull hook.
Bye-bye, ball. Tiger on the rocks.
Tiger, unhinged. Five words flew from his
mouth that took God's name in vain, incorporated the adjectival
form of the curse word based on reproduction and finished off
with a body-part reference.
“Blank blank you blanking blank,”
Woods snarled.
Pebble's 18th tee is isolated from fans,
but an NBC boom mike all but serves as the tee marker. So Tiger
was yelling live into living rooms around the world. Gee, Mommy,
Barney never says that stuff.
No, but Woods was giving youngsters who
idolize him a rare look into the real Tiger, the 24-year-old who
still hasn't outgrown the spoiled child within. The real Tiger
often uses foul language off-camera. The real Tiger still refuses
to accept he has an on-camera responsibility to mind his tongue.
As Tom Kite, the 1992 Open winner at Pebble,
said: “I never saw Arnie (Palmer) do it. I never saw Jack
(Nicklaus) do it. I never saw (Tom) Watson do it. I doubt Bobby
Jones ever did it. There's no place for it.”
Of course, just about anyone who has ever
hit a golf ball into a pond has gone uncharacteristically Mr.
Hyde. For sure I've shocked myself with my scatological creativity.
But I am not Tiger Woods.
Nor am I from his Rome-is-falling generation.
I am from Kite's, and what he and I might not grasp is just how
cool Woods' “cussing in church” is to his rebellious
contemporaries. They love the outrageous in “Something About
Mary” and “American Pie” — two movies I must
admit to liking. Woods' blue streak surely undercut his popularity
among the shocked Buick-buying mothers of small children. But
Nike privately had to love the way it increases his marketability
among teenagers and 20-somethings.
Like the earringed Michael Jordan known
for occasionally punching a teammate in practice or hitting an
opponent in the face with the ball, Woods has a little gentleman
rogue in him.
After Woods' outburst, NBC host Dan Hicks
chided that “Michael Jordan would have never done that.”
Well, not on camera. But Jordan can talk trash with the worst
of `em. As a basketball player, Jordan was able to channel his
rage into 50-point outbursts and championships.
But in golf, rage can be channeled only
into triple bogeys and missed cuts. Woods continues to fight his
final flaw, the temper tantrum.
In apologizing on NBC, Woods said: “I
let my emotions get the best of myself . ... Unfortunately, I
let them voice out loud.”
Remember, Woods' unprintable rage was aimed
only at himself. He called himself all those names for hitting
such a stupid blankety-blanking shot. But here was the key: This
time Tiger Woods was immediately able to regain control of his
go-to-your-room emotions and hit the turning-point shot of the
100th Open.
He did not retreat to an iron for his second
tee shot, as most players would have. Another snap-hook down on
the rocks could have sent Woods' score tumbling into Carmel Bay.
He hit his driver again, and hit it the way he intended to the
first time.
He made a great bogey. He was off to the
races, eventually lapping the field. A triple bogey on No. 3 —
“I just got a bad break” — triggered not even a
gosh darn. On a wind-swept, rock-hard Pebble that had every other
competitor muttering under his breath, Woods displayed new maturity.
After three rounds, Woods leads the Open
by 10 shots, because he is golf's best driver, best shot-maker
and best putter. Like Jordan, he has become the best at every
phase of his game. Like Jordan, his body has matured from skinny
to muscled. Like Jordan, he doesn't just want to win, he wants
to bury the field.
But until Woods convinces himself that he
just can't curse on national TV, he will lack one quality Jordan
had in abundance. Class.
(c) 2000, Chicago Tribune.
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