Tiger still a work in progress
By JIM LITKE AP Sports Writer
More than two dozen TV crews were waiting last year when the
kid showed up at the Byron Nelson. He was making his first start
since a mind-bending, 12-shot win at the Masters. Tigermania was
at its peak.
Fast-forward to Sunday's BellSouth Classic and you get a sense
of how far he's fallen.
"The only reason I won today," Tiger Woods said,
"is I got lucky breaks."
It's quite a drop from inspiring talk about "Tiger-proofing"
Augusta National - which is what the golf world was debating at
this time in 1997 - to holding off Jay Don Blake by one stroke
at the TPC course at Sugarloaf. And being glad of it.
"I think if you shoot a 62 to win it's not as satisfying
as grinding it out and winning while not having your best stuff,"
Woods said.
These days the debate Woods inspires most often is where he
left his cloak of invincibility. He had gone 10 months and 16
starts without winning a PGA Tour event before the BellSouth.
But the place most often cited was at the Nissan Open earlier
this year, when he lost to Billy Mayfair on the first hole of
a playoff.
In truth, Woods played 1997's other three majors unspectacularly,
and played spectacularly bad in the Ryder Cup. But alibis for
those events were easy to come by: Woods' win at the Masters was
so embarrassing that his fellow pros did everything from practice
more to work out more to hire more sports psychologists to elevate
their own games. And it all sounded plausible, especially so long
as Woods suffered the occasional beatings at the hands of Ernie
Els (U.S. Open), Justin Leonard (British Open), Davis Love III
(PGA Championship) or what seemed like the whole of Europe (Ryder
Cup).
But after Woods stayed close to the top of nearly every one
of his early starts on the tour this year, the loss to Mayfair
suggested Tiger's game wasn't as evolved as it seemed. After all,
it's one thing to get pasted by the first tier of players - Els,
Leonard, Love and David Duval of late - especially when we're
talking majors on championship venues. It's something else, though,
when the Billy Mayfairs and Jay Don Blakes start cropping up regularly
in your nightmares.
Els and Mark O'Meara, a pal and neighbor whom Woods put the
green jacket on just this past month, have been especially vocal
in defending the still-only-22-year-old from unrealistic expectations.
Even Jack Nicklaus, who wasn't above predicting a short time ago
that Tiger would win more Masters titles than he and Arnold Palmer
combined, is backing out of the prophecy business.
Woods' flaws during the just-ended drought have been easy enough
to spot. He is still prone to bouts of wildness off the tee; including
Sunday's win, none of Woods' seven victories has come over a tough
driving course. He still has problems controlling the distances
of his iron shots. Most telling, perhaps, Woods remains a so-so
putter from about 8 feet in - the most crucial stretch of territory
in the game.
There are plenty of theories about why someone so accomplished
in so many facets of the game would still be lacking in some others.
Age is the most obvious explanation, but not comprehensive enough.
Ten or so years into his career, once he began to string together
wins in the major championships, Nicklaus cut back his schedule
to 15 tournaments and began focusing primarily on the four biggest
ones.
When Woods was a kid, he taped a list of Nicklaus' accomplishments
to the wall of his bedroom and kept track of how old he was when
he matched them. This time, Woods seems to have borrowed another
page from the old man - scheduling his game to peak for the majors
- but he might have done so too soon for his own good.
Not long ago, Nicklaus said the scrutiny Woods faces exceeded
anything that had taken place throughout his career and wondered
how much desire it would drain from his game. The answer, judging
only by the number of events Woods has cut out of his playing
calendar, is considerable already.
A year later, it's apparent how much a work-in-progress Tiger
remains. It's not a case so much that a reassessment of the kid's
career is in order. It's the judgments made in the wake of his
Masters win that need to be revisited.
One of the more perceptive golf publications, no doubt suffering
from Tigermania at this time last year, asked some Important People
to render some Important Judgments about what Tiger's singular
win at Augusta really meant. A year later, all those overly long,
overly weighty opinions have been harpooned by something writer
Dan Jenkins said at the time.
"It means," Jenkins said, "he's still five Masters
wins behind Nicklaus."
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