After 12-stroke Master's win, Woods issued
wake-up call to PGA Tour stars
By Eric Gilmore / Knight Ridder Newspapers
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- It was the score heard 'round the golfing world,
a performance as stunning as it was historic.
A year has passed since Tiger Woods turned the 1997 Masters
into his coronation as Augusta National's new king and its first
black champion.
Woods shot a record 18-under-par 270. He won by a record 12
strokes, all but lapping the field. He was a record 22 under par
over the final 63 holes.
"The score Tiger shot here was a wake-up call to the rest
of the professional tour, and it does make you say, 'This guy's
really good, we have to elevate our level of play,' " two-time
Masters champion Tom Watson said Wednesday.
So now we'll see whether the gap has closed when Round II of
Tiger vs. the World, a k a the 1998 Masters, begins Thursday,
weather permitting.
Thunderstorms hit Augusta late Wednesday afternoon and more
were expected overnight and Thursday.
Mother Nature may put Woods on hold, but can any golfer keep
him from cornering the market on green jackets at Augusta National?
Don't count on the old guard. Greg Norman has a sore shoulder
and a psyche so wounded by his 1996 Masters collapse it may never
heal. Three-time Masters champion Nick Faldo's putting stroke
has turned jack-hammer rough. Two-time winner Ben Crenshaw has
yet to recapture his magic -- even on the greens -- after foot
surgery.
Thanks to laser surgery, Tom Kite's vision is 20-20, but at
48, his odds of seeing a green jacket are fading to black. Watson,
another 48-year-old, has remembered how to putt but can't keep
up with Woods' nuclear drives. Fred Couples, the 1992 champion,
has a bad back.
It will be up to golf's young guns and a few thirty-something
big hitters to prevent Woods from turning the Masters into his
personal property.
South Africa's smooth-swinging Ernie Els, who will defend his
U.S. Open title in June at San Francisco's Olympic Club, heads
a list of potential spoilers. Davis Love III, winner of the 1997
PGA Championship, and defending British Open champion Justin Leonard,
are two other contenders.
Add David Duval, former PGA and British Open champion John
Daly, England's Lee Westwood, ex-British Open winner Tom Lehman,
Phil Mickelson, Mark Calcavecchia and Colin Montgomerie, despite
his past Masters woes, to the mix.
Els, a two-time U.S. Open winner, trounced Woods and Love in
a 36-hole Sunday showdown to win the Bay Hill Invitational last
month in Orlando, Fla. Els doesn't buy talk of Woods holding a
huge advantage over the tour's other top players.
"I think Tiger just had an unbelievable week last year,
making everything, putting very well, hitting the ball very well,"
Els said. "He just had a dream week.
"Will he be in contention? Definitely, even if he doesn't
play very well. The golf course just suits him that well."
Augusta National, with its short par-5s, wide, short-cropped
fairways and microscopic rough, is a dream course for Woods, the
tour's biggest hitter. He can unleash his full power off the tee
without fear. Last year he destroyed the par-5s, going a combined
13 under par.
Yet for all his moon shots off the tee, Woods' most impressive
feat came on Augusta's slippery greens. He didn't three-putt all
week. What's more, by his count, he didn't miss a putt inside
10 feet.
"If he plays and putts the way he did last year, we've
got a real battle on our hands," Montgomerie said. "The
way he putted was unbelievable. So I can't see him putting as
well, but he might well go do it.
"It's a very interesting position for us to see how he
reacts to situations and see how he does."
Westwood, coming off a win at the PGA Tour's New Orleans stop
last week, has been one of the world's hottest players. He finished
24th last year in his first trip to Augusta and expects to climb
higher.
"I'm confident," Westwood said. "Obviously I'm
playing well."
Love is confident, too, now that he has his first victory in
a major championship. Like Els, Love scoffs at talk of Woods dominating
the tour.
"Nobody's going to win 20 tournaments in a year,"
Love said. "If you think they will, you're dreaming. Nobody
can sustain that these days.
"There are too many Lee Westwoods coming from overseas,
and there's too many Joel Kribels and Justin Leonards, like I
played with today," he added. Kribel, an amateur, is a Stanford
golfer from Pleasanton.
Woods is playing it as politically correct as possible. Anyone,
even an amateur, can win, he claimed.
"We're all here, and we've all got to play," Woods
said. "No one's separated themselves. We're all at even par
and looking pretty good."
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(c) 1998, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.).
Visit HotCoco, the World Wide Web site of the Contra Costa
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