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Enough already! We need old Tiger to be Tiger of old

Johnette Howard

June 18, 2004

Hey! I want the Master of the Golf Universe back. It's hard to see Tiger Woods reduced to this. It really is. I don't mean the sight of Woods landing only five of 14 shots on driving holes in the U.S. Open fairways yesterday or the sight of him muttering, cussing and slapping his thigh in anger during his fitful 2-over-par, opening-round 72. Anyone can have a rough day. What was extraordinary was the spectacle of seeing the once mighty Woods smile (smile?) after his petulant round and say - with a lilt in his voice, no less! - "I played all right."

Huh?

Someone gently reminded Woods that he "found the bunkers a lot" - seven times in 18 holes, to be exact.

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" Woods laughed - laughed! - and smiled again, then added, "I thought I hit pretty decent."

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Wait. What about on No. 14, where Woods raised his club over his head and took a mighty, two-fisted tomahawk whack at the fairway rough because the shot he just hit thudded down in a bunker? What about at 15, where a disgusted Woods bent down to pick up his tee without even watching his drive because he knew that shot, too, was in the tall grass? What about the two-word expletive Woods hissed when a good-looking putt stalled before the cup a handful of holes earlier?

Woods looked so frustrated at one point on the back nine, he seemed in danger of giving himself a uni-brow. His eyebrows were jammed down that hard. He was fuming.

It's hard to remember Woods routinely showing this much emotion on a golf course when a round is going bad. In happy moments, yes, Woods will cut loose an uppercut or some teeth-bared primal yell. But act out in bad times? The old Woods? Hardly ever. Woods used to be the Great Stoic, the indomitable champion who loathed letting the rest of the field ever see him sweat.

Now? Either Woods was doing a deliberate spin job about his round yesterday just in case his rivals were listening or Woods was genuinely happy that his scrambling start didn't blow up into a tournament-killing round. As he spoke, he sat six shots back of the co-leaders.

Shinnecock Hills is exceptionally hard, all right. But the course was not as inhospitable as it will get if the wind starts switching this way and that, and the flags start snapping. But perhaps Tiger will be immune to wind, too, because yesterday he said he wasn't actually shooting to get close to the flag sticks. Not exactly.

Nah. Picking your spots is prudent here. But Woods was fibbing a bit, too. His explanation about intending to miss as often as he did sounded more like a continuation of that uncharacteristically long-winded complaint he unspooled Tuesday, when he was asked if it bothers him that TV golf commentators analyze his wayward swing now vs. his swing when he seemed invincible.

"Am I tired of it? Yeah," Woods said. "We laugh about it on tour how these guys think they know everything and they don't ... They're not out here watching us play every shot, working on the range. They watch one golf shot and they analyze - this is what I like, pretty funny ... You don't know if I'm hitting a fade, you don't know if I'm hitting a draw, you don't know if I'm hitting it high or hitting it low. You don't know what kind of lie I have, and you try and compare swings."

That's true. But the analysts do know he means to hit it on the fairway.

As Shakespeare once said (or was it Lee Trevino?): "Methinks he doth protest too much."

Woods, riding an 0-for-7 streak in the majors, seems to be getting a thinner skin by the minute. But it must be hard when you believe your destiny is overtaking Jack Nicklaus as Best Ever and some lingering mediocrity gets in the way. Woods' drought in majors has to feel worse given that there have been six first-timers winning in his stead, including comparative unknowns such as Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem.

Woods will allow he's frustrated he hasn't won a major since 2002 at Bethpage. The previous two times he's won the Open, Woods led the tournament field by hitting a shade more than 73 percent of the greens in regulation. Yesterday, he hit only 50 percent. Though Woods did shrewdly play it safe some of the time, he willfully ignored mentioning the holes where he wanted to get closer but didn't.

"Yeah, but if you look at a lot of the pin locations, they're right on the fall-offs [off the green]," Woods said.

Before trudging off for some extra practice on the range, Woods blamed some of his drives into the rough on "a lot of funky bounces."

Honestly, it was all I could do right then not to let him hear me sniffle.

So sad.

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