It was an extraordinary weekend for Tiger Woods as he won his 14th major championship at Torrey Pines. A few random thoughts for the tiny subset of Standard readers who have been dying for some golf-blogging: 1) Tiger is the best golfer ever. Period. Jack Nicklaus, the previous holder of that title, won 18 major championships. Tiger is now within four of that mark, and you get the sense he’s not even halfway done. By the time he’s through, Tiger will shatter every record in the book. But even if he quit golf tomorrow to pursue peace in a Tibetian lamasery, Tiger would go down as the best ever. No one has ever dominated golf the way Tiger has the past decade. Really, the only issue is whether Tiger’s the most dominant athlete ever to play any sport. If you’re a golf fan and you appreciate greatness, then you’re fortunate to be living in the Tiger Woods era. 2) All of that said, Tiger can be a bit of a baby when things aren’t going his way. Of his 14 major championship victories, none of them have come when he didn’t enter the final round with the lead. Given how much better he is than his competitors, this is a shocking statistic. This weekend, Tiger was testing his surgically repaired knee. The announcers kept saluting his courage, but I kept thinking, “You know, he’s not exactly the first professional athlete to play injured.” And as injuries go, Tiger’s golfed-on scoped knee didn’t quite rank up there with Bobby Orr playing NHL hockey with a left knee that essentially had no cartilage. Still, the fact that he was injured and wasn’t capable of being the normal Tiger Woods is the reason why this was such a defining weekend for Tiger. In an ordinary championship, Tiger is the most gifted player by a mile. His injury brought him back to the pack in that regard. And yet he still found a way to win. 3) (WARNING – GOLF ARCHITECTURE WONKISHNESS FOLLOWS. FEEL FREE TO SKIP DOWN TO #4) The venue for the championship, Torrey Pines in San Diego, is not a great golf course. Indeed, it’s downright mediocre. You have to marvel at the dearth of architectural imagination that designed an ocean-side golf course and yet featured an unbelievably dinky man-made water hazard on the 18th hole. Anyway, that’s how they built courses in the mid-20th century. Still, Torrey Pines hosted a great championship, primarily because the course allowed for birdies. The 18th hole, a short par 5, yielded birdie and eagle opportunities. The same was true of 14, a 277 yard par 4 that the pros could reach with their tee shots. Many modern courses are built with the specific intention of being a non-stop grind that will pound the golfer into submission. The weekend at Torrey Pines showed that fun also has a place in golf course design. 4) Jack Nicklaus has frequently lamented over the years that no one ever plays well when they face off against Tiger. Nicklaus, of course, had no such luck – champions like Tom Watson and Lee Trevino not only played well against Nicklaus but routinely beat him. If Nicklaus wants to be fair (which I doubt), he could acknowledge that Tiger deserves much of the credit for turning his opponents into jelly. It’s a pretty tall order when you’re playing someone who can not only hit the ball like no one else in history but is also the best putter the game has ever seen. If Nicklaus took the time to become the putter that Tiger is, Tiger would have to wait another decade to assault his records. Anyway, Jack must have been moderately happy yesterday because the unheralded Rocco Mediate played great golf facing Tiger. (I kept telling my wife over the weekend that Rocco was a really fine player in the early 90’s before his back went blooey.) Rocco seems like the archetype of the kind of guy who does well against Tiger. Regardless of who he’s playing against, Rocco plays his own game. He stays within himself, and doesn’t get rattled because the other guy is hitting the ball farther. It’s interesting that none of the young guns like Adam Scott or Sergio Garcia have been able to properly function against Tiger, but a series of grinders who are much more self-made talents – Bob May, Rich Beem, Chris DeMarco, now Rocco – have acquitted themselves rather well. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.
