Having watched Michael Jordan play basketball I had convinced myself I had seen the greatest athlete of my generation play.
Correction, he was the second greatest athlete because Tiger Woods is by far the best.
Tiger won his 12th major yesterday by five strokes as the rest of the field floundered somewhere behind him, Woods opened up a five stroke lead. It was the 12th time Woods had a part or all of the lead going into Sunday and for the 12th time he won. This essentially means that when Tiger is in position to win he does not choke it away. In other words if he is at the top of the leaderboard history says the tournament is over and everyone else is playing for second.
Now I happen to think that any debate on his greatness versus Jack Nicklaus cannot begin in earnest until he passes Nicklaus as holding more major championships. I do think it is entirely fair to debate the issue on the basis of the body of work so far in comparison to how Nicklaus had performed. Tiger is 30 years and 9 months old and he already has 12 major championships to his credit. He accomplished this feat in 40 major starts which means Woods is averaging better than one win in every fourth major played. Nicklaus by his 40th major only had nine titles. As for age Nicklaus did not win his 12th major until the 1973 PGA Championship about seven months after his 33rd birthday. So not only has Woods won three more majors in he same number of major tournaments BUT he has three more majors three years earlier. This is to say that Tiger would have to go 0 for his next 12 majors to have the same number of majors at the same age as Nicklaus was at this point in his career. Woods also won his 51st PGA event and is only 31 behind Sam Snead for the most in the category.
The question we have to ask now is how many will he win? Assuming he stays healthy and his game continues to be head and shoulders above the rest of the field the question is not if he passes Nicklaus but when and by how much? Nicklaus career provides a glimpse of what kind of time table we may be looking at. Nicklaus won his 16th and 17th majors in 1980 when he was 40 years old and then surprised the field at Augusta in 1986 to win his 18th and last. In ten years Woods will be 40 which includes another 40 major starts assuming he is healthy. Woods just went 12 for 40 during the first 10 years of his career. I am going to handicap him to account for the beginning some level of decline as he approaches 40 and say he only wins 10 of the next 40. That would put him at 22. I would also think that he is more durable than Nicklaus was and will be more competitive through his mid to late 40s so count on about four more major titles after age 40. That would give him a surely insurmountable total of 26 major titles. If you also factor in the possibility that he may be on the verge of ripping off a streak of dominance which has him winning multiple majors a year then he could very be at 20 by age 35 and still could win 8 to 10 more after than to get him close to 30 major titles.
I just do not see any limit to what he can do on the golf course. Woods said in the press conference yesterday that he was playing as well as he did when he won four straight majors at the turn of the century and now he had seven years more experience. That means the first time around he won more on his physical talent and did not have the experience level. Now, not only does Woods have the physical talent but he has the experience of winning 12 majors and 39 other tournaments. This is evident in the strategies he used to win the British and the PGA where Woods looked for controlled drives even if it meant sacrificing distance because his approach shots are so good it does not matter if he is 50 yards behind his playing partner Woods is still probably hitting the same club or higher. And if his putting is on then as long as he gets in on the green he will drop more in for birdie than not.
This may sound like gushing on my part but I am awed by his performance on the golf course, his intensity and focus as well as the manner in which he handles the media. He is the total package and playing on a level no one has seen since Nicklaus and I suspect before it is all done even Nicklaus will be considered second best to Woods. And there will be no debate.
And this was the weekend that was:
Floyd Landis on Plan C
So Landis’ “B” sample was tested and the results were announced which showed the same thing the first one showed and that was he had too much testosterone in his body and that some of it was synthetic in nature.
(pause post)
Now, having been a NCAA student-athlete I endured the specter of the random urinalysis drug test once a season except it was not as random as one might think since you had 24 hours notice. This always led to the comical sight of the soccer players showing up, entering the bathroom with their cups and emerging with it full of completely clear urine. In other words they spend that last 24 hours drink six gallons of water in an attempt to flush their system of whatever they may have ingested, smoked, or drank which may or may not produce a postive result. In my world the two greatest dilemmas I face was (1) Whether or not I could fill the cup up to the line since they tested us after we ran 8 miles in ninety degree weather and (2) whether or not the poppyseed muffin I ate the week before would show up as an opiate on the test.
I also am humored by the fact that all these world class athletes have vials of the urine or blood stored in labs all over the world which can be taken out and tested days, months, and years later to see if they were juiced or not.
(resume post)
Anyway, Landis is not in full spin control as he conducted interviews this morning in which he distanced himself from the more ridiculous excuses he offered last week such as drinking beer caused his levels to go up. He is also maintaining total innocence which is an interesting position to take in the face of such damning evidence. A man who stands firm like this when everything we know says otherwise is either (1) Clinging to a wing and a prayer or (2) Actually innocent. I honestly do not know how the second could be true unless you buy into Landis’ theory that the UCI and World Anti-Doping Agency has an agenda. This is somewhat plausible in light of the accusations leveled against Lance Armstrong but as with all conspiracy theories it also requires too many people to know what is happening to make it happen. I mean this isn’t a soap opera where someone can sneak into the lab and switch the labels on the DNA test to make little Nicky believe that Paul is his father and not Ned. I assume there are significant controls in place.
Landis is basically in Pete Rose territory now where if the samples are correct he is only hurting himself in the long run by sticking with a defense that is totally debunked by the evidence and no one outside of his family and hometown actually believe. Landis also has to prove how synthetic testosterone made it into his sample if he did not use a patch. That excuse should be interesting to say the least.
Tiger Wins Buick Open
Tiger Woods gave the rest of the PGA Tour something to think about as we head towards the final major of the season by shooting four consecutive 66s and winning by three strokes over Jim Furyk. And yes Tiger hit driver in this tournament, only hit 2/3 of the fairways and still won by three. I did not see but on shot of this tournament and it was Tiger driving the ball left of the green on a par 4 from the tee and then angrily swinging the club again. Woods then walked down to his ball alone with driver in hand which I presume he was ready to break against a tree somewhere. As much as is made about Woods’ drives and the erratic nature of his accuracy it should be noted that if his second shots are dead on and his putting is good then the drives really do not matter. Woods hits his second shots, even from the rough, well enought to overcome his failure to drive the ball as accurately as everyone else. The PGA Championship is in two weeks and it will be Tiger Woods’ tournament to lose.
I was sick all weekend which made me fairly miserable but also granted me total control of the bedroom television all day. I was able to enjoy the full weekend coverage of the British Open and the Tour de France which both turned out to be American triumphs. In my last post I covered the emotional impact of Tiger Woods’ victory at Royal Liverpool. Now on to the rest of the things I observed while trying to cough up my right lung.
The British Open
- I heard some golf analyst interviewed on 850 the Buzz last week who said that Sergio Garcia is still somewhat immune to criticism for not having delivered the goods since standing toe-to-toe with Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship. My question is can we criticize him now? Not only does Garcia break multiple fashion taboos out there he simply folds like a cheap lawn chair when he gets anywhere close to a lead in a major. On Saturday, Garcia blistered the front nine at 29 and moved within one shot of Woods at -11. With three negotiable par 5s left on the back nine Garcia produces one birdie and finished the day at -12. Woods was -13 and led to Garcia and Woods being paired together. Bad news for Sergio who bogeyed four holes on the front and took himself out of contention. One announcers said Sergio probably wishes “Tiger was 42, 43 years old.” I am not sure even that would matter.
- Let me just say I like Chris DiMarco. He almost matched Tiger shot for shot. I would have been interested to have seen how the round would have gone had they been paired together. It would have made for some epic golf I am sure. It was also a case of two grieving sons dueling each other for that “destiny” win for their father/mother. Tiger won that duel but no one would have minded if DiMarco had pulled it out.
- “CAMERA PHONES!!!” That was Woods’ cry on at least two occassions where he stepped away from his ball after being peturbed by the beeping of camera phones. It happened so often that Woods and Garcia were warned on the 10th for slow play. This led to an interesting discussion among the ABC announcers of whether the PGA would enforce a one stroke penalty if the slow play continued(BTW, they were slow, a full hole behind DiMarco/Els but then again they were the last group.) Yeah, riiiiiggghhhht. The PGA is going to dock Tiger a stroke on something as trivial as slow play when he is holding up no one behind him. A better idea would be the PGA removing anyone from the course who is brandishing a camera phone while the player is addressing the ball. I am sure the specter of being kicked out of the tournament would be enough of a deterrent for those amatuer photogs.
- Someone on ESPN Radio this morning suggested that Woods’ win was cheapened by the fact he chose to hit driver only once and instead hit three wood and 2 iron to keep the ball on the fairway and short of the pot bunkers. At times Woods was a full 100 yeards behind Els or Garcia on his drive but because he hits his irons so far and so well he can accomodate for the extra distance. It is no secret Tiger has not hit his driver accurately in a long time and his strategy at Hoylake was simple: Keep it in the fairway. In doing so Woods showed himself to be a brillant tactician as well as physically capable golf player. This theory is wrong for two reasons. First, it forces Tiger to hit a longer second shot which requires far more accuracy considering the speed of the greens and pin location on a links course. Woods essentially played to his strength which is not necessarily his drives but his approach shots. Not to mention, Woods’ putting was dead on all weekend which illustrates putting the ball in birdie position does not matter if you are unable to put it in the hole(Just ask Sergio Garcia). The second point is the object of the game of golf which is to move the ball from the tee to hole in the fewest number of strokes over 72 holes. Nowhere in the rules of golf does it dictate certain clubs must be used to accomplish this task. Woods did what he needed to do to accomplish the goal which was shoot the lowest score. I could care less if he used a putter to do it and speaking of which I found it more disturbing guys were putting from the fairway onto the green than I did Woods not using driver. This guys was trying to trump up controversey to spark an on-air argument for ratings.
- Finally it has been 39 years since the Open was played at Hoylake. What are the odds it will be another 39 years or when Tiger is out of his prime before it ends up there again.
Tour de France
- Much to the chargrin of Frenchman another American won the Tour de France this weekend. Floyd Landis who was counted out after Stage 16 when he fell 8 minutes back(yeah he’s done) came back in Stage 17 and close the gap back to 30 seconds, stayed put until the Stage 19 time trial which constitutes the last “real” stage on the Tour. Since Landis was far superior in the time trial than any of the overall leaders he concluded Saturday with a minute lead which would be enough to secure victory on Sunday. Why?
- Because for some reason the last stage in Paris is a stage that is not really a stage. In other words your opponents are either unable to catch up to you because the stage occurs on the streets of Paris or out of some sense of sportmanship they refuse to try. Lance Armstrong said that it was cermonial for the most part except if you fell and broke a collarbone you could lose the Tour. This probably explains why Landis had teammates surrounding his bike for most of the stage. If you ask me it seems a little anti-climatic. If the stage counts when make the winner earn it. If the streets of Paris cannot accomodate real racing then leave Paris for the very end and have some real racing to determine the winner. This would be like a team winning their third game in the World Series and then handing them the next game in a slow pitch softball exhibition.
- And the OLN announcers were good for the most part except for one depressing segment where they lamented Carlos Sastre who was close to the lead and then was blown away in the time trial. They kept using phrases like “he has lost everything” and “you have to feel for Sastre having rode so well only to lose now.” First of all, stop the presses, we have never seen a case in the history of sports where someone leads a race or game all the way through and then fails at the end. The NCAA Tournament was made on stuff like that. Secondly, they make it sound so life altering as though Sastre is contemplating suicide for having failed so utterly in his pursuit of cycling’s greatest prize. I have expected him to take a ride straight off a mountain since apparently life was no longer worth living.
Tiger Woods finished off a masterful performance Sunday winning the British Open at -18 two stokes ahead of fellow American Chris DiMarco. Woods, in his trademark final round red shirt, tapped in for par on 18, pump his fist in the air and then walked over, embrace his caddie and broke down in tears. It was the first time since losing his father that he had won a golf tournament. As he moved into the crowd he found solace in his wife’s embrace and the tears fell freely. It was a incredible moment of raw emotions and a glimpse of humanity in a player who is known for his intensity on the course and a singular focus on winning.
For any son who has lost a father, Tiger Woods’ tears reminds us that grief needs only a perfect intersection of events to dominate our will. The moment we lose someone close to us we enter into a “new reality.” We are forced unwilling by death to awake in the morning without that person in our life, without the benefit of hearing their voice or enjoying their company. Their counsel is forever lost and memories which begin to fade almost immediately are all we have. Grief comes in waves, at first like tidal tusnami’s nearly drowning us in pain and sorrow. With each rising sun we adjust, we come to terms with their absence and understand that their legacy is our to protect and carry on in our own life. The grief with was a storm surge the day he died ebbs aways to small waves lapping our bare feet on the beach.
There are those occassions, especially in that first year where the “firsts” make those waves stronger and bring us once more to a broken heart. The first birthday or Christmas, Father’s Day or Thanksgiving all carry with them the sorrow of missing someone who had been a constant figure in our lives. Tiger Woods faced one of those “firsts” on Sunday. As he stepped off the 18th green he came to terms with the “new reality” of his life without his father. Earl Woods would not be amid the throng of well wishers to give him a hug nor could he pick up a phone and here his father congratulate him on another major win. It was the first time he had won without his father seeing it. And as he walked off that green into a new reality he found a caddie to absorb his tears and a wife to steady him against the torrent of grief newly rising. And the comfort for Tiger Woods is he has crossed one more barrier on the road grief would have him walk. He has come to terms with another part of the new normalcy he must live now. And it doesn’t mean he won’t look for his father the next time he wins before catching himself or shed a tear when he misses him now and again on an 18th green somewhere.
But in many ways now he really can move on.
Undoubtedly the sound of unbridle joy heard this morning was coming from ABC executives who are positively giddy over the fact that Tiger Woods is at the top of the leaderboard going into the network’s weekend coverage of the British Open. Tiger’s disappointing outing at the U.S. Open where he failed to make the cut in his first tournament since his father’s death has faded in favor of vintage Tiger who recorded an eagle two on the par 4 14th hole. At the time Woods was three strokes in front at -12 and since then Ernie Els has closed to within one in the clubhouse at -11.
This is not surprising for two reasons:
1. Woods played well at the Western Open two weeks ago. He finished second and appeared to show signs that everything was clicking. Losing your father, as I found out, takes more than a week or two to deal with, in fact you never really deal with it you just adjust to a new reality. The crucial mistake for Woods was making the U.S. Open his first tournament back given the difficulty the USGA provides on the course during that tournament. In Woods’ case his father’s death is magnified by the fact that their relationship and golf were intertwined. Playing golf for the first time without his father watching, whether it be from afar or on the course was a difficult task. The same was true of Michael Jordan who retired from the game after his father died and anyone who does not think the two are related does not understand the grief process.
2. I think Tiger likes the course. Royal Liverpool has not been host to The Open since 1967. Not many of the golfers have seen it before and Tiger’s first look at it was a week before play started. According to the analysts the course plays significantly shorter than it is listed because the ball rolls and skips so easily on the fairway. Also, when you drive the ball like Tiger does having par 5s in the mid to low 500 yard range is tatamount to handing him birdies and eagles which is precisely what happened in the first round when he finished the final three holes(pars 5-4-5) with birdie-par-eagle to get to -5.
He will be paired with Ernie Els, a major winner in his own right, so it should make for compelling viewing tomorrow morning/early afternoon. Another reason to like the British Open. The rounds wrap up earlier in the day.
I came to a realization Saturday night. I realized how glad I was that the NCAA Tournament does not include a best-of-seven series to win the championship. I just do not know how much I could deal with UNC being up 3-1 on someone and have them lose two straight games and look really bad doing it. Of course I would have to think that UNC would have more titles since series play tends to produce the better team in the end. I really hope that is the case tonight as Carolina hosts Edmonton in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Canes looked flat and basically were steamrolled by the Oilers physical play in a Game 6 loss 4-0. I also thought the Oilers got away with felony assault on some checks but that does not tend to matter when you allow Edmonton to carve up your zone and get clean shots at Cam Ward. Erik Cole returned to the lineup after being at three months with a broken neck(and let it be said that I hope I can go back to doing anything three months later if I ever break my neck or even two cracked vertabrae as was the case with Cole) There is nothing like a Game 7 for ALL the marbles. One goal could win it and the Canes need to wake up and take it right to Edmonton’s zone, they need to be physical, and they need to leave it all on the ice because there is no tomorrow.
UNC baseball is rolling at the College World Series. They topped Cal State-Fullerton Friday night in extra innings and last night handed #1 Clemson a 2-0 loss. If the Heels win once more they get a slot in the best-of-three championship series(yeah I know what I said before.) UNC has some very strong pitching including two guys taken in the first round of the MLB draft earlier this month. Here’s hoping for another national title in Chapel Hill.
In case anyone was beginning to think Phil Mickelson was on the same level with Tiger Woods, Mickelson took care of that by choking away a one shot lead with a double bogey on the 18th hole of the US Open yesterday at ultra difficult Winged Foot. Mickelson who called himself an “idiot” afterwards used his driver and sent the ball into the rough and then instead of chipping back onto the fairway tried to hit the ball out of the woods and played pinball with the trees. Needless to say I can relate which is why the US Open is so fun because all of these pros end up looking like your favorite uncle after he has had five beers and lost four golf balls. Now, Woods did not make the cut but he also had not played since the Master because of the death of his father. I know I was barely thinking straight two months after my father died and given Earl Woods prominence in the golfing career of his son it may take Tiger a while to get his “A” game back. The difference between Mickelson and Woods in that situation is Woods would have found a way to win. He would have either made a smarter club selection on the drive or pull out some tremendous shot to at least salvage the playoff. It would have been Mickelson’s third straight major title, now all it is images of Vintage Lefty choking away the big one. My father-in-law who theorizes that Tiger Woods majors drought was the only reason Phil finally won most likely enjoyed yesterday’s result. He has some serious dislike for Mickelson.
And let me note that my opinions of the NBA Finals and World Cup soccer are the same as they were last week. On the NBA front I watched Dallas opt to foul Shaquille O’Neal instead of actually playing defense since O’Neal makes about one free throw as often as they score goals in World Cup soccer. The NBA is just not good basketball to watch and the fact they are starting game at 9:20 PM EDT is atrocious. They spend so much time on pre-game and I cannot really be sure what can be said about the game that has not been said every 10 minutes on SportCenter every day and night. As for the World Cup, there is more time spent kicking the ball around than anything else. I see final scores of 0-0 flash by which means two teams kicked the ball around for over 90 minutes and nothing happened. I also find the players behavior after they get knocked down as though a sniper in the press box has blown a hole in their right leg only to bounce up once a yellow card is issued to their opponent. I know baseball is also low scoring and so is hockey but at least there are things happening in the context of the game. I see very little going on in a soccer match.
Tiger Woods opened up play in the Match Play Championships with a record 9&8 win over Stephen Ames. Now, if you are unfamiliar with how match play is scored, two golfers play 18 holes. Each hole can be won with the lowest score or if they end up with the same score it is “halved” If Woods birdies and Ames has a par, Woods wins the hole. Whoever wins the most holes wins the match and if a player is leading by a deficit greater than the number of holes left to play the match ends. This was the case yesterday between Woods and Ames. Woods won the match 9&8 which means he won nine holes and the match ended with eight holes left which is also the fastest a match can be won mathematically speaking. The real story to the match was what Ames said about Tiger beforehand. Ames was asked about his chances of beating the world’s #1 golfer. His (stupid)response was:
“Anything can happen, especially where he’s hitting the ball.”
Ames was alluding to Woods last tournament, The Nissan Open, where he sprayed the ball all over the course. Woods has a tendancy to miss a lot of fairways at times and it can only be assumed that Ames was banking on a wild day from Tiger to keep him in the match. Obviously the last thing you want to do when going head to head with Tiger Woods is say something that will tick him off. In the press conference Woods was asked about the comment by Ames and if he had any reaction. Woods response?
“Nine and eight”
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