Come in late on the Tiger Woods tumult and you catch him committing his first double bogey of the century, his first four-putt since the butter churn was a household appliance.
Still, that’s Tiger all over. Nothing is routine, nothing is ordinary. Every exploit requires a historical setting, and this goes back to Woods’ father aiming his young offspring’s future influence not in terms of Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali–either status most are now willing to concede the golfer–but to Mahatma Gandhi.
Imagine sawing off a golf club, placing it in a toddler’s hands and instructing, “Go destroy the British Empire.” Ambition never has been a Woods’ deficiency.
So, losing two golf tournaments in a row, as Woods did Sunday by unforgivably wallowing among the rear-end ciphers at Riviera, O.J. Simpson’s old course, neither charging nor collapsing, takes on a sizable significance.
If the world is going to set aside Sundays for Tiger, then all the Jesper Parneviks and Kirk Tripletts aren’t going to reimburse the time lost watching the most eye-numbing sport on TV after fishing.
In my case, I missed the whole six-tournament Tiger winning streak. Didn’t see a shot, didn’t know it was happening until it was over. Six is not that impressive a streak, unless you are talking about consecutive wives or doing something with a ball that actually moves.
Not even Nelson’s 11 wins in a row, never mind Tiger’s six, should be mentioned alongside Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, nor Wayne Gretzky’s consecutive scoring games.
And tell me what’s tougher, losing four Super Bowls in a row or beating David Duval every time you play him? Four is more impressive than six, in this case. I submit my argument to Buffalo.
But here comes history to the rescue. Nothing like Tiger’s streak had happened in golf since the nation liked Ike, that would be Eisenhower, not Turner. Maybe both. The point is, it had been a very long time with lots of bogeys under the bridge, many birdies over the pond, since it had been done.
Suddenly names were summoned from misty memory, old heroes being revived. As Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did for Roger Maris, there was Woods recycling Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, even Jack Nicklaus. Not a Mahatma among them, but a beginning.
And when Woods loses his streak in San Diego, he is forced to conclude that second place is not worth getting excited about. How dreary, then, must concluding in a clump seven strokes back in Los Angeles be, and losing not to an authentic contemporary like Phil Mickelson but to a maiden drone like Triplett?
And just to keep history’s fingers in the Tiger pie, it has been 17 tournaments since Woods finished worse than seventh.
Nobody wins a golf tournament that Woods enters. Woods loses the tournament, and whatever name is scrawled or etched on the trophy has at least an invisible Tiger asterisk; in this case, *”Tiger lost because the greens were bumpy.”
So, a question while the Tiger curiosity is still vital. May we just get on to the Masters, please? Get that Grand Slam underway? Enough of this dinking around such trivial pieces of real estate as Riviera and, next week, La Costa. Small stages are cramping Woods, and muddling his myth.
If Tiger is not going to win every week, and we’re several months from another streak, what’s going to keep the legs under Tiger is the chance at the Grand Slam. Already odds have been set, 80-1 for all four, with the Masters at 5-2 and the other three at 3-1. These are incredibly small odds. One of the reasons golf never has gained great popularity outside of country clubs is that it is almost impossible for anyone not playing to bet on. Woods is simplifying the process, making golf an understandable wager, according to a casino acquaintance of mine.
The four Grand Slam tournaments make an efficient betting package. The history and romance of the game are nice, but hard cash rules. Woods already has the record at Augusta. He already has won at Pebble Beach this year, site of the U.S. Open. The British Open is at St. Andrews, a wide open, long hitters’ track. And Woods is the defending PGA champion, the tournament slated this year in Louisville at Valhalla.
No golfer ever has won the Grand Slam in a single year. Hogan got three legs in ’53, Nicklaus was unable to get more than two. Gandhi, as I recall, never made the cut.
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