None too shabby in defeat
By Mike Steinberger
Published: August 3 2007 17:37 | Last updated: August 3 2007 17:37
Tiger Woods had barely signed his scorecard after the final round of the British Open two week ago when Golf magazine published, on its website, an obituary of sorts for the world’s finest player. It said 2007 was shaping up as one to forget for Woods and that the US PGA Championship would be his “last chance to save a lost season”.
The PGA begins on Thursday at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and if Woods fails to defend his title there, he will be 0-4 in major tournaments this year, at which point other media outlets will surely join Golf in declaring the year to have been a wasted one for him.
And who could blame them? The world number one has set such an outlandishly high standard – he has won 12 majors in 11 full seasons on the PGA Tour and 77 tournaments in total – that anything less than victory does, for him, look like abject failure. That certainly seems to be his view; he often describes finishing second in tournaments as being “the first loser”.
Given his record and mindset, it is hardly surprising that the press is treating his 2007 campaign – no majors and merely three tournament victories – as something of a washout.
But to judge Woods solely in terms of where he stands on the leader board is to miss part of what makes him so special. It is when Woods struggles that one can really appreciate just how brilliant a golfer he is.
Consider, for instance, this year’s British Open, at Carnoustie. Woods, the defending champion, opened well, shooting a two-under 69 in the first round. On the Friday, however, his swing went on holiday and he managed only five of 15 fairways.
Yet on a day when little went right for him he not only avoided catastrophe; he also stayed in contention, shooting a three-over 74. It was a performance worthy of Houdini. Woods repeatedly put himself in mortal danger, then escaped – saving par from one bunker, saving par from the lip of another, hitting out of some trees to avoid a bogey, and so on. Rarely has scrambling ever looked so sublime. In lesser hands – and hands controlled by lesser wills – the score could easily have been double that.
For Woods’ long-time rival Phil Mickelson, it was: he shot six-over par on the Friday and missed the cut. And therein is the difference not just between Woods and Mickelson but between Woods and the rest of humanity.
The next day’s accounts reported only that Woods had stumbled. There is an all-or-nothing attitude when it comes to his achievements, which is understandable but regrettable.
In preparing to write off 2007 as a complete failure for him, reporters are overlooking one of the more interesting, and telling, developments in his historic career. When he claimed his first fistful of majors, he tended to win by jaw-dropping margins (the 1997 Masters, the 2000 US Open, the 2000 British Open). And when he fell short, it was often by sizeable, if not quite so extravagant margins (the 1999 Masters, the 2001 British Open, the 2001 PGA).
But that has changed. Woods has won four of the last 11 grand-slam titles, dating back to his victory at the 2005 Masters. Of the majors he has not captured during this period, he missed the cut at one – last year’s US Open, which came just weeks after his father’s death – and finished 12th in another, this year’s British Open. But he finished tied for fourth at the 2005 PGA, tied for third at last year’s Masters, took second at the 2005 US Open and tied for second at both this year’s Masters and US Open.
Nowadays, even when he is not at his best – and Woods has been struggling this season with his driving and putting – it is still almost good enough to win.
True, he had some near-misses earlier in his career, tying for third at the 1999 US Open and finishing runner-up at the 2002 PGA. Back then, however, close calls were the exception with Woods – they are now becoming a habit.
In this way, too, he invites comparisons with the man he is chasing, Jack Nicklaus. In addition to the 18 majors that Nicklaus won, he finished second in grand-slam events an astonishing 19 times. He also finished third in nine majors and fourth in eight others.
Although one can never say never with the 31-year-old Woods, it is doubtful that he will ever match Nicklaus in this department. As surely Nicklaus would admit, the competition is a lot deeper now than it was during his era. But all those brushes with victory are another measure of Nicklaus’s greatness, and it is starting to look as if that will be the case for Woods too.
Meanwhile, Southern Hills was not especially kind to Woods when it last hosted a major, the 2001 US Open. He finished tied for 12th, seven strokes back. Given his admittedly limited history there and the sub-optimal shape of his game,it would not be a shockif he fails to defend hisPGA title.
However, if recent performance is anything to go by, the trophy will probably not elude him by much, and on a course known to make players grind, his grinding will surely have a beauty of its own.
Woods never looks better than in victory. But these days, he is not looking too shabby in defeat, either.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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