KEEPING SCORE
Swimming With The Shark
What an Open Championship it was – quite different from the undeniable drama that was the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, of course, yet still rather timeless in its own right. [Aside: If the Masters wasn’t so bound and determined to turn their event into a bad U.S. Open, we might have had one hell of a 2008 going…]
But before getting into the event’s most compelling aspect, we must first give Padraig Harrington his due…and it is considerable.
We can begin with all of the obvious accomplishments. With his victory over a demanding, windswept Royal Birkdale layout, Harrington joined a rare list of repeat Open champions, became the first Irishman to claim the Claret Jug twice, the first European since James Braid more than a century ago to successfully defend his title, and so on. He also deserves kudos for his simple, old-fashioned pluck, for this is a man who, as late as Wednesday afternoon, was not altogether certain he’d even be able to start due to a wrist injury. But in the end, what stood out the farthest was simply Harrington’s ability to lift his game to a supremely high level when most he needed it, playing the final six holes in four-under-par figures over one of the toughest courses in Open history. It was a truly epic performance on the world’s biggest stage – and if anyone still wants to mumble about all those second-place finishes early in Harrington’s career, perhaps they’d be better off getting to the range and trying to break 120 themselves, because this man’s game stands far, far above reproach.
And yet Padraig Harrington wasn’t even close to being the week’s biggest story.
For that we turn to a man who proved that even some two decades past his competitive prime, he can still inject an unmatched jolt of electricity into a golf tournament, 53-year-old Greg Norman.
There really aren’t adequate words to describe how remarkable Norman’s 54-hole performance was, not simply because he was leading but because of the stunning, almost surreal quality of his play. On Saturday afternoon – when things begin to get serious, and a worldwide audience of millions tunes in – he truly turned back the clock, looking so much like the Great White Shark of old that so long as we could focus only on his swing and body language, it might really have been circa-1986 all over again. The swing was perhaps a little shorter, but really just a very little, for only in the earliest years did Norman get the driver much past parallel. As for the rest, he simply played superb, aggressive golf, using the driver consistently (occasionally when no less than Tom Watson was counseling safer play from the broadcast booth), attacking pins where he could, and moving with that brand of light-on-his-feet confidence that so characterized his game during the late 1980s and early 90’s.
But interestingly, this also looked to be a slightly different Greg Norman, a man who, perhaps due to his newly stabilized domestic situation, looked considerably more relaxed than did the intensely competitive Shark of yesteryear. And while this apparent calmness hardly caused him to throttle back his aggressive approach, it could only have helped a golf swing which, during the glory days, occasionally looked handicapped by its owner’s burning desire to overpower the golf course, the competition, perhaps the entire golfing world.
Though the same observers who formerly mocked Padraig Harrington’s frequent bridesmaid’s status may well talk about Norman’s “losing” this Open, the reality is that a 77 under Sunday’s difficult conditions was by no means a terrible score (particularly given several prominent putts that lipped out). It was not, however, a championship-caliber performance, and particularly given the superb effort turned in by Harrington when most it counted, Norman’s effort was thus, inevitably, doomed to failure.
Still, this was an Open Championship perceived as being tainted, even before the first tee shot, by the absence of an injured Tiger Woods. As it turned out, however, there was a golfer in the field capable of transcending 155 other storylines, of carrying the world’s oldest championship singlehandedly upon his shoulders. Even at age 53, that golfer remains Greg Norman.
He always was one of a kind.
But before getting into the event’s most compelling aspect, we must first give Padraig Harrington his due…and it is considerable.
We can begin with all of the obvious accomplishments. With his victory over a demanding, windswept Royal Birkdale layout, Harrington joined a rare list of repeat Open champions, became the first Irishman to claim the Claret Jug twice, the first European since James Braid more than a century ago to successfully defend his title, and so on. He also deserves kudos for his simple, old-fashioned pluck, for this is a man who, as late as Wednesday afternoon, was not altogether certain he’d even be able to start due to a wrist injury. But in the end, what stood out the farthest was simply Harrington’s ability to lift his game to a supremely high level when most he needed it, playing the final six holes in four-under-par figures over one of the toughest courses in Open history. It was a truly epic performance on the world’s biggest stage – and if anyone still wants to mumble about all those second-place finishes early in Harrington’s career, perhaps they’d be better off getting to the range and trying to break 120 themselves, because this man’s game stands far, far above reproach.
And yet Padraig Harrington wasn’t even close to being the week’s biggest story.
For that we turn to a man who proved that even some two decades past his competitive prime, he can still inject an unmatched jolt of electricity into a golf tournament, 53-year-old Greg Norman.
There really aren’t adequate words to describe how remarkable Norman’s 54-hole performance was, not simply because he was leading but because of the stunning, almost surreal quality of his play. On Saturday afternoon – when things begin to get serious, and a worldwide audience of millions tunes in – he truly turned back the clock, looking so much like the Great White Shark of old that so long as we could focus only on his swing and body language, it might really have been circa-1986 all over again. The swing was perhaps a little shorter, but really just a very little, for only in the earliest years did Norman get the driver much past parallel. As for the rest, he simply played superb, aggressive golf, using the driver consistently (occasionally when no less than Tom Watson was counseling safer play from the broadcast booth), attacking pins where he could, and moving with that brand of light-on-his-feet confidence that so characterized his game during the late 1980s and early 90’s.
But interestingly, this also looked to be a slightly different Greg Norman, a man who, perhaps due to his newly stabilized domestic situation, looked considerably more relaxed than did the intensely competitive Shark of yesteryear. And while this apparent calmness hardly caused him to throttle back his aggressive approach, it could only have helped a golf swing which, during the glory days, occasionally looked handicapped by its owner’s burning desire to overpower the golf course, the competition, perhaps the entire golfing world.
Though the same observers who formerly mocked Padraig Harrington’s frequent bridesmaid’s status may well talk about Norman’s “losing” this Open, the reality is that a 77 under Sunday’s difficult conditions was by no means a terrible score (particularly given several prominent putts that lipped out). It was not, however, a championship-caliber performance, and particularly given the superb effort turned in by Harrington when most it counted, Norman’s effort was thus, inevitably, doomed to failure.
Still, this was an Open Championship perceived as being tainted, even before the first tee shot, by the absence of an injured Tiger Woods. As it turned out, however, there was a golfer in the field capable of transcending 155 other storylines, of carrying the world’s oldest championship singlehandedly upon his shoulders. Even at age 53, that golfer remains Greg Norman.
He always was one of a kind.
Daniel
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The Major Major Championship
Among the world’s top players (and, for what it’s worth, most of the all-important media contingent), there is little dissent to the notion that the PGA Championship is the “fourth” of golf’s four annual Majors – the only one of the quartet with even the slightest amount to fear whenever the PGA Tour’s P.R. machine ratchets up their annual “Fifth Major” nonsense prior to the Player’s Championship. Where the debate livens up considerably, however, is on the subject of which of the three remaining Majors – the Masters, the U.S. Open or the British Open (universally known outside of the U.S. as simply the Open Championship) – might be considered the best or most desirable of the bunch.
We should, of course, stipulate that this is one of those wholly unresolvable arguments, something akin to whether Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium is the better baseball venue, or Cypress Point or Pine Valley the better golf course; in the end, our particular conclusions are inevitably tied to our personal tastes and biases.
And to be sure, each of the three candidates brings something special to the table.
The Masters is certainly golf’s most unique tournament, the only Major annually played over the same course, and an event imbued with the sort of tradition that only its Bobby Jones-rooted pedigree can provide. Even with its silly new millennium alterations, the Augusta National Golf Club remains a venue of almost singular appeal, particularly as play rounds into the all-or-nothing 13th, 15th and 16th holes on Sunday afternoon. Combine all of this with the Masters’ status as something of a rite of Spring and its place in golf’s pantheon remains, despite the club’s heavy-handed course meddling, utterly secure.
The U.S. Open, on the other hand, is without question golf’s most grueling test, a gauntlet of USGA-enhanced terror designed to whittle things down to the last man standing. Par indeed remains the standard of excellence – except when the event visits really difficult venues like Winged Foot and Oakmont, and then it’s about five strokes beyond. With the USGA's abrogation of responsibility with regard to equipment, a bit more tricking-up is now in order to maintain the chosen balance, but in the end, the American national championship will forever hold a unique niche among the Majors as the toughest event in golf.
And then there is the Open Championship.
We in the United States have been bred – passively, I believe, not by any sinister design – to view the “British Open” as a fine championship, an event more or less on par with the Masters and the U.S. Open, even if we have to wake up frighteningly early (at least on the West Coast) to see it. I don’t believe, however, that there are many born-and-bred American golfers who view the Open as in any way exceeding our own Majors, and this is where things get interesting.
There is, after all, a reason why the event is known simply as the Open Championship. It was founded roughly 30 years before golf was even being played in the States (and most other corners of the globe) and was not simply the Scottish or British championship, but really the world’s championship; the idea of placing a national name within the title, then, was wholly unnecessary. Further, while the Masters and U.S. Open will forever retain their particular cachets, it is undeniable that golfers from the many nations playing under the rules of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club (read most everyone outside of North America) generally rate the Open Championship as the event they most richly covet. And with the majority of the world’s best players not named Tiger hailing from states other then the 50, shouldn’t the closest thing golf has to a world championship thus be ceded a place at the head of the Major championship table?
And one more thing: Being contested over links courses, where the luck of the bounce, the capriciousness of the occasional blind shot and the overriding presence of the elements all profoundly affect play, the Open Championship is the rare professional event to even vaguely resemble golf in its purest, most original form.
And if that doesn’t qualify it as the game’s pre-eminent event, I surely don’t know what does.
A Different Kind Of Cup
So the testing has begun.
Despite the public protestations of a few – and, unquestionably, the private reservations of many more – the PGA Tour has followed the lead of the LPGA Tour (there’s a thought…) as well as most of the organized sporting world by beginning random drug testing at last week’s AT&T National in Washington. The testing, by most accounts, is of a fairly thorough variety, though a bit of vague language in the Tour’s policy manual seems to leave Commissioner Tim Finchem a modicum of disciplinary wiggle room should any of his more valuable horses prove positive.
So…good or bad?
The primary argument against testing has always been that golf is a gentleman’s game, the rare professional sport where players call penalties on themselves, and where competitive honesty, even in these shortcut-oriented times, generally carries the day. And I believe that most of us who have been around the game our whole lives consider that all to be highly legitimate, but…
Unlike most major professional sports, which can subsist on gate receipts, TV revenues and an element of advertising, professional golf requires sponsors – major companies willing to pony up what in America now amounts to something in the neighborhood of $5 million just to make each weekly event happen. And that’s before we get into the economics of golf on television, historically a commercially viable proposition only because while the overall number of viewers doesn’t match the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball, the demographic of those who do watch (read older and more affluent) has long held a unique appeal to a number of upscale advertisers. Thus Tim Finchem & Co. wisely recognize that even if the Tour has no drug issues whatsoever, the need to guarantee such status to big dollar sponsors is, in our present world, a major one.
Having said that, however, let me add a touch of heresy to the discussion.
Sure, I believe that the overwhelming majority of professional golfers worldwide are clean, and very much abide by the game’s gentlemanly code. However, I also believe that money talks, which gets me to thinking… There are, lets say, 1,000 male golfers currently plying their trade on the world’s major regional tours. That’s 1,000 golfers among whom the differential in skills is not particularly great – but consider the difference in compensation accorded the 1,00th versus, say, the 200th, or the 100th, or the 10th. With this exponential difference in compensation, plus the relative ease with which modern players can use events sponsored by multiple tours to quickly gain playing status on larger stages, is it really realistic to assume that not a single up-and-comer wouldn’t take a shortcut? That not a single 978th–ranked player would conclude that the potential financial jackpot might be worth the risk, and try whatever sort of substance some snake oil salesman (or a Victor Conte) might sell him?
True, there likely wouldn’t be many such cases – but if there’s even one, the Tour would have a problem.
Perhaps because he’s heard the occasional whisper regarding his own muscular physique, Tiger Woods has taken a strong pro-testing position – if nothing else, a smart P.R. move by someone whose accomplishments have so redefined what is possible that any reassurance that it has all been clean, real and above reproach is a good thing.
Tim Finchem, for his part, was given the “opportunity” the kick off the testing himself (courtesy of his Tour Policy Board) which at least sets a good – if slightly coerced – example.
So after all the buildup, now the testing has finally started. And beyond all the rights and wrongs, all the questions of what’s good for the Tour vs. player’s privacy, the lingering fear that someone’s prescription drug (or their asthma inhaler) might get them banned, even the unresolved issue of whether any performance enhancing drugs would actually help the professional golfer… Beyond all of these things, perhaps the most cogent and succinct comment on the advent of drug testing was made last fall by European Tour CEO George O’Grady, who noted jokingly:
“If Tiger’s test comes back negative, what does it matter what the rest of them are on?”
But sadly, given golf’s need to protect its squeaky-clean image in a sports/entertainment world regularly marred by such scandals, it would absolutely matter.
A lot.
Despite the public protestations of a few – and, unquestionably, the private reservations of many more – the PGA Tour has followed the lead of the LPGA Tour (there’s a thought…) as well as most of the organized sporting world by beginning random drug testing at last week’s AT&T National in Washington. The testing, by most accounts, is of a fairly thorough variety, though a bit of vague language in the Tour’s policy manual seems to leave Commissioner Tim Finchem a modicum of disciplinary wiggle room should any of his more valuable horses prove positive.
So…good or bad?
The primary argument against testing has always been that golf is a gentleman’s game, the rare professional sport where players call penalties on themselves, and where competitive honesty, even in these shortcut-oriented times, generally carries the day. And I believe that most of us who have been around the game our whole lives consider that all to be highly legitimate, but…
Unlike most major professional sports, which can subsist on gate receipts, TV revenues and an element of advertising, professional golf requires sponsors – major companies willing to pony up what in America now amounts to something in the neighborhood of $5 million just to make each weekly event happen. And that’s before we get into the economics of golf on television, historically a commercially viable proposition only because while the overall number of viewers doesn’t match the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball, the demographic of those who do watch (read older and more affluent) has long held a unique appeal to a number of upscale advertisers. Thus Tim Finchem & Co. wisely recognize that even if the Tour has no drug issues whatsoever, the need to guarantee such status to big dollar sponsors is, in our present world, a major one.
Having said that, however, let me add a touch of heresy to the discussion.
Sure, I believe that the overwhelming majority of professional golfers worldwide are clean, and very much abide by the game’s gentlemanly code. However, I also believe that money talks, which gets me to thinking… There are, lets say, 1,000 male golfers currently plying their trade on the world’s major regional tours. That’s 1,000 golfers among whom the differential in skills is not particularly great – but consider the difference in compensation accorded the 1,00th versus, say, the 200th, or the 100th, or the 10th. With this exponential difference in compensation, plus the relative ease with which modern players can use events sponsored by multiple tours to quickly gain playing status on larger stages, is it really realistic to assume that not a single up-and-comer wouldn’t take a shortcut? That not a single 978th–ranked player would conclude that the potential financial jackpot might be worth the risk, and try whatever sort of substance some snake oil salesman (or a Victor Conte) might sell him?
True, there likely wouldn’t be many such cases – but if there’s even one, the Tour would have a problem.
Perhaps because he’s heard the occasional whisper regarding his own muscular physique, Tiger Woods has taken a strong pro-testing position – if nothing else, a smart P.R. move by someone whose accomplishments have so redefined what is possible that any reassurance that it has all been clean, real and above reproach is a good thing.
Tim Finchem, for his part, was given the “opportunity” the kick off the testing himself (courtesy of his Tour Policy Board) which at least sets a good – if slightly coerced – example.
So after all the buildup, now the testing has finally started. And beyond all the rights and wrongs, all the questions of what’s good for the Tour vs. player’s privacy, the lingering fear that someone’s prescription drug (or their asthma inhaler) might get them banned, even the unresolved issue of whether any performance enhancing drugs would actually help the professional golfer… Beyond all of these things, perhaps the most cogent and succinct comment on the advent of drug testing was made last fall by European Tour CEO George O’Grady, who noted jokingly:
“If Tiger’s test comes back negative, what does it matter what the rest of them are on?”
But sadly, given golf’s need to protect its squeaky-clean image in a sports/entertainment world regularly marred by such scandals, it would absolutely matter.
A lot.
Youth, Muscles and the U.S. Women's Open
Though form held nicely at April’s Kraft Nabisco Championship (where world number one Lorena Ochoa emerged victorious), it is difficult not to notice the youthfulness of the LPGA Tour’s two most recent Major champions, Taiwan’s 19-year-old Yani Tseng (who claimed the LPGA Championship) and last week’s U.S. Open winner, 19-year-old Inbee Park of Korea. And while in each case the Major title was the player’s first official LPGA victory, neither young woman could in any way be called a fluke; Tseng came into the LPGA Championship ranked 25th in the world (with two 2nd-place finishes already on her 2008 ledger) and Park arrived at the Open ranked 42nd, with two top 10s in her last three starts, and an earlier 9th-place finish at the Kraft Nabisco. Though both were helped by the sub-par play of Ochoa and world number two Annika Sorenstam, their victories were impressively achieved – and likely will not be either player’s last.
But this run of youthful success got me to thinking…
Whenever some early teen Morgan Pressel or Michelle Wie pops up in a U.S. Open, or qualifies into a regular LPGA event, we inevitably hear some scoffing, some suggestion that only a perceived inferiority of the women’s game in general allows such prodigies to successfully compete. And on the surface, such thinking might seem logical – for when was the last time a teenager proved themselves capable of seriously competing on the PGA Tour?
But I think such downing of the LPGA misses one very important point: In terms of pure physical strength, the fully matured, adult male holds an enormous advantage over, say, a talented 16-year-old, whose power game – not just off the tee but also out of the rough – lags well behind because of it. Women, on the other hand, are by nature less physically strong than men, thus there is far less muscular development to take place throughout their teens and early 20s, making the physical gap between the 13 and 30-year-old female vastly less than the physical gap between corresponding males. And this, I believe, is the main reason for young women being able to compete at the highest level significantly earlier than young men.
But this disparity in physical strength raises, for me at least, one more question.
The USGA is famous for setting up U.S. Open courses with narrower fairways and deeper rough (among other things), and the Women’s Open, though tricked up to a lesser degree than the men’s, is no exception. But as modern equipment mandates more and more severe setups so that the USGA’s beloved “par as the standard of excellence” remains viable, the element of luck seems to grow ever greater, and I wonder: Is it strictly coincidence that of the last six Women’s Open winners, three claimed the Open as their first-ever LPGA title?
In 2003, Hilary Lunke, a former collegiate star at Stanford, defeated Kelly Robbins and Angela Stanford in an 18-hole playoff at Pumpkin Ridge, an occasion which represented not only Lunke’s only LPGA Tour win but also her only career finish better than 15th (!) in what to date amounts to 119 career starts. Two years later at Cherry Hills, it was little-known (save for her name) Birdie Kim holing a long bunker shot at the 72nd to secure a two-shot victory over amateurs Pressel and Brittany Lang – and with the exception of a 2nd-place finish at last year’s Tournament of Champions (a short field event), Kim hasn’t come close to winning again in America. And now we have former junior star Inbee Park, considerably less of a fluke than Lunke or Kim certainly, but, with nary a professional win worldwide prior to the Open, something of a longshot nonetheless. Further of the world elite, only fourth-ranked Paula Creamer was seriously in contention at Interlachen, and then only until a disappointing final-round 78 derailed her hopes.
So does the USGA’s Women’s Open setup disproportionally enhance the chances of having a fluke winner?
The fact that Hall-of-Famers like Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam and Juli Inskter have also claimed the title in recent years could suggest otherwise, but I would hasten to point out that on the LPGA Tour, the elite win a far greater percentage of the time than do, say, the top five players not named Tiger on the men’s side.
So my gut feeling is yes…but I could be wrong.
But this run of youthful success got me to thinking…
Whenever some early teen Morgan Pressel or Michelle Wie pops up in a U.S. Open, or qualifies into a regular LPGA event, we inevitably hear some scoffing, some suggestion that only a perceived inferiority of the women’s game in general allows such prodigies to successfully compete. And on the surface, such thinking might seem logical – for when was the last time a teenager proved themselves capable of seriously competing on the PGA Tour?
But I think such downing of the LPGA misses one very important point: In terms of pure physical strength, the fully matured, adult male holds an enormous advantage over, say, a talented 16-year-old, whose power game – not just off the tee but also out of the rough – lags well behind because of it. Women, on the other hand, are by nature less physically strong than men, thus there is far less muscular development to take place throughout their teens and early 20s, making the physical gap between the 13 and 30-year-old female vastly less than the physical gap between corresponding males. And this, I believe, is the main reason for young women being able to compete at the highest level significantly earlier than young men.
But this disparity in physical strength raises, for me at least, one more question.
The USGA is famous for setting up U.S. Open courses with narrower fairways and deeper rough (among other things), and the Women’s Open, though tricked up to a lesser degree than the men’s, is no exception. But as modern equipment mandates more and more severe setups so that the USGA’s beloved “par as the standard of excellence” remains viable, the element of luck seems to grow ever greater, and I wonder: Is it strictly coincidence that of the last six Women’s Open winners, three claimed the Open as their first-ever LPGA title?
In 2003, Hilary Lunke, a former collegiate star at Stanford, defeated Kelly Robbins and Angela Stanford in an 18-hole playoff at Pumpkin Ridge, an occasion which represented not only Lunke’s only LPGA Tour win but also her only career finish better than 15th (!) in what to date amounts to 119 career starts. Two years later at Cherry Hills, it was little-known (save for her name) Birdie Kim holing a long bunker shot at the 72nd to secure a two-shot victory over amateurs Pressel and Brittany Lang – and with the exception of a 2nd-place finish at last year’s Tournament of Champions (a short field event), Kim hasn’t come close to winning again in America. And now we have former junior star Inbee Park, considerably less of a fluke than Lunke or Kim certainly, but, with nary a professional win worldwide prior to the Open, something of a longshot nonetheless. Further of the world elite, only fourth-ranked Paula Creamer was seriously in contention at Interlachen, and then only until a disappointing final-round 78 derailed her hopes.
So does the USGA’s Women’s Open setup disproportionally enhance the chances of having a fluke winner?
The fact that Hall-of-Famers like Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam and Juli Inskter have also claimed the title in recent years could suggest otherwise, but I would hasten to point out that on the LPGA Tour, the elite win a far greater percentage of the time than do, say, the top five players not named Tiger on the men’s side.
So my gut feeling is yes…but I could be wrong.
Touching Immortality
A Classic U.S. Open at Torrey Pines
In a manner generally reserved for the drama that used to be the Masters, it seems as though anyone with even a remote interest in the game of golf was in tune with the U.S. Open over the weekend – and even into Monday when, at least in my circles, the playoff between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate drew unprecedented interest. And why not?
This was definitely an Open for the ages.
To begin with, there was Torrey Pines, a long, scenic but not terribly interesting golf course chosen both for being public and for possessing tons of corporate tent space. Now, lets be realistic here: We all love the notion of a quality municipally owned golf course, and the USGA scores points in combating golf’s elitist image whenever they can visit such a truly public site. But at Torrey Pines, we are talking about a layout ranked 74th in the nation by Golf magazine, and completely unranked – not even among the top 30 in the state of California! – by Golf Digest. And yet largely on the strength of one of the finest course setups in memory, the USGA made Torrey Pines work. Indeed, they did a lot more than that, orchestrating a thrilling, goosebump-producing national championship on a layout whose best hole (the third? The 13th?) is arguably weaker – and certainly less interesting – than anything at last year’s storied venue, Oakmont. Torrey Pines is what it is, a long, well-situated, heavily bunkered municipal golf course. But USGA director of rules and competitions Mike Davis and his team (along with an obviously skilled grounds crew) succeeded in converting it into a legitimate U.S. Open venue – no small accomplishment, that.
Then we have Tiger Woods.
One of the great failings of observers of sport (both media and fans) is the shortsightedness that makes contemporary viewers assume that the greatest performances of their day must be the greatest of all time. Michael Jordan, we’ve been told ad nauseum, is the greatest basketball player ever, and Muhammad Ali the greatest heavyweight boxer. Yet one need only find a knowledgeable oldtimer or two – people who actually saw some of the other candidates compete – to discover the myopic nature of our modern day vision.
The career of Tiger Woods has hardly been exempt from such mellifluous praise; by the time he was 25, observers who’d scarcely seen Jack Nicklaus play (nevermind Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones or Harry Vardon) were crowning him the greatest golfer of all-time. Initially such talk was silly. Eventually it became quasi-valid in the sense that his level of play surely ranked at the very top even if his career record lagged well behind the all-time elite. By that particular definition, it is difficult even now to call him the greatest, simply because Jack Nicklaus has still won eight more PGA Tour events and four more Major championships. But as the gap between them steadily closes, Tiger’s place at the top evolves rapidly from “anticipated” to “presumptive” – and performances like this U.S. Open victory, accomplished essentially on one leg, and with an almost surrealistic aura of magic about it, seem to render the semantic aspects of the discussion entirely moot.
Tiger, like all the truly great ones, has already achieved immortality – but enjoy him while you can, because like all those who came before him, his mortal skills cannot last forever.
And then we have Rocco Mediate.
Entering the week ranked 158th in the world, the ever-affable Rocco is well known as one of golf’s nicest guys, yet I suspect that this niceness actually works against him when it comes to assessing his record as a player. Frequently portrayed as a "journeyman” during the week, Rocco is actually anything but; when not plagued by lingering back problems, he has consistently proven himself a top-50 money winner right on into his 40s. More importantly, his résumé includes five PGA Tour victories, which means that among the literally thousands of players who have competed in the annals of American professional golf, only 140 – certainly less than 1% – have claimed more Tour titles.
Yet Mediate, at age 45 and six years removed from his last win, entered the week as the very definition of an underdog, and perhaps rightly so. But there he was, his compact, quick-tempoed swing lingering around the lead all week, then holding up defiantly under the suffocating pressure of Sunday afternoon at the U.S. Open. On Monday, Woods ran out to a three-stroke lead through 10, and all of us – myself very much included – assumed it was over. But in his biggest-ever moment, Rocco would not go away, amazingly carding birdies at the 13th, 14th and 15th and actually re-taking the lead.
In the end, his missed 16-footer at the last meant that he had failed to birdie the shortish par-5 finisher either or Sunday or Monday, leaving the door just open enough for Woods to twice tie things up, setting the stage for Tiger’s ultimate sudden death victory at the 19th hole.
Had Rocco Mediate holed that putt on the 90th green and become the most improbable U.S. Open champion in more than half a century, he too would have achieved immortality. As it is, he carved a nice piece of history for himself.
It’s not like holding up the trophy, but it isn’t bad.
This was definitely an Open for the ages.
To begin with, there was Torrey Pines, a long, scenic but not terribly interesting golf course chosen both for being public and for possessing tons of corporate tent space. Now, lets be realistic here: We all love the notion of a quality municipally owned golf course, and the USGA scores points in combating golf’s elitist image whenever they can visit such a truly public site. But at Torrey Pines, we are talking about a layout ranked 74th in the nation by Golf magazine, and completely unranked – not even among the top 30 in the state of California! – by Golf Digest. And yet largely on the strength of one of the finest course setups in memory, the USGA made Torrey Pines work. Indeed, they did a lot more than that, orchestrating a thrilling, goosebump-producing national championship on a layout whose best hole (the third? The 13th?) is arguably weaker – and certainly less interesting – than anything at last year’s storied venue, Oakmont. Torrey Pines is what it is, a long, well-situated, heavily bunkered municipal golf course. But USGA director of rules and competitions Mike Davis and his team (along with an obviously skilled grounds crew) succeeded in converting it into a legitimate U.S. Open venue – no small accomplishment, that.
Then we have Tiger Woods.
One of the great failings of observers of sport (both media and fans) is the shortsightedness that makes contemporary viewers assume that the greatest performances of their day must be the greatest of all time. Michael Jordan, we’ve been told ad nauseum, is the greatest basketball player ever, and Muhammad Ali the greatest heavyweight boxer. Yet one need only find a knowledgeable oldtimer or two – people who actually saw some of the other candidates compete – to discover the myopic nature of our modern day vision.
The career of Tiger Woods has hardly been exempt from such mellifluous praise; by the time he was 25, observers who’d scarcely seen Jack Nicklaus play (nevermind Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones or Harry Vardon) were crowning him the greatest golfer of all-time. Initially such talk was silly. Eventually it became quasi-valid in the sense that his level of play surely ranked at the very top even if his career record lagged well behind the all-time elite. By that particular definition, it is difficult even now to call him the greatest, simply because Jack Nicklaus has still won eight more PGA Tour events and four more Major championships. But as the gap between them steadily closes, Tiger’s place at the top evolves rapidly from “anticipated” to “presumptive” – and performances like this U.S. Open victory, accomplished essentially on one leg, and with an almost surrealistic aura of magic about it, seem to render the semantic aspects of the discussion entirely moot.
Tiger, like all the truly great ones, has already achieved immortality – but enjoy him while you can, because like all those who came before him, his mortal skills cannot last forever.
And then we have Rocco Mediate.
Entering the week ranked 158th in the world, the ever-affable Rocco is well known as one of golf’s nicest guys, yet I suspect that this niceness actually works against him when it comes to assessing his record as a player. Frequently portrayed as a "journeyman” during the week, Rocco is actually anything but; when not plagued by lingering back problems, he has consistently proven himself a top-50 money winner right on into his 40s. More importantly, his résumé includes five PGA Tour victories, which means that among the literally thousands of players who have competed in the annals of American professional golf, only 140 – certainly less than 1% – have claimed more Tour titles.
Yet Mediate, at age 45 and six years removed from his last win, entered the week as the very definition of an underdog, and perhaps rightly so. But there he was, his compact, quick-tempoed swing lingering around the lead all week, then holding up defiantly under the suffocating pressure of Sunday afternoon at the U.S. Open. On Monday, Woods ran out to a three-stroke lead through 10, and all of us – myself very much included – assumed it was over. But in his biggest-ever moment, Rocco would not go away, amazingly carding birdies at the 13th, 14th and 15th and actually re-taking the lead.
In the end, his missed 16-footer at the last meant that he had failed to birdie the shortish par-5 finisher either or Sunday or Monday, leaving the door just open enough for Woods to twice tie things up, setting the stage for Tiger’s ultimate sudden death victory at the 19th hole.
Had Rocco Mediate holed that putt on the 90th green and become the most improbable U.S. Open champion in more than half a century, he too would have achieved immortality. As it is, he carved a nice piece of history for himself.
It’s not like holding up the trophy, but it isn’t bad.