SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Sports Editor
England’s Luke Donald shot an impressive third-round score of 6-under 66 and got himself a chance to play with the world’s best golfer for the final round of this year’s PGA Championship. Instead of getting a massage and relaxing to welcome one of the most nerve-racking rounds in golf, Donald went out that night and watched “Snakes on a Plane.” But what was waiting for him the next day was beyond his preparation: he saw a tiger on a golf course.
If Donald were to shoot a movie of his day on Aug. 20 from his perspective, his film would probably make it to an Oscar nominee for the Best Thriller Film Award, if such a category existed. Before the story begins, Donald put himself on the top of the leaderboard with 14-under 202 (68, 68, 66) after the first three rounds of the PGA Championship at the 7,561-yard Medinah Country Club near Chicago. So did his fearful opponent in the movie.
All the audience members believed they would see a close match between Chicago’s favorite 28-year-old Englishman, who graduated from Northwestern University, and his wild enemy. And that’s also what director Donald initially planned. But he didn’t really know things could go wrong when a tiger is on a golf course.
So the match ended up with the tiger eating the poor man’s flesh to the bone — it was a pure domination. But it’s OK. No human being can beat up a tiger when it’s wild like no golfer can stop Tiger Woods when he is hot.
The season’s final major championship ended with another victory by Tiger Woods, arguably the greatest golfer ever. Although the world’s No. 2 Phil Mickelson stole all the attention for the first half of the season, his impressive performances at majors began to fade away as he dramatically collapsed on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in June.
Woods, on the other hand, struggled at the Masters and the U.S. Open, mainly due to the death of his “best friend” or his father. However, he played flawless golf at the British Open in July and the PGA Championship last week, even after missing the cut at the U.S. Open for the first time as a pro.
Did anyone think it would take a while for him to come back or maybe he would never be as good as he was before? I did. But guess what? He is already back. Actually, he is not just back — he is better than ever.
Think of it this way: For the first time in his professional career, Tiger miserably failed to make the cut at the U.S. Open by three shots. I mean, the loss of his dad kept him away from competitive golf for nine weeks before the season’s toughest mental test in golf, so I can understand him being rusty and missing the cut at Winged Foot. But what’s amazing is that he played four events after the U.S. Open and he went 2nd, 1st, 1st and 1st. Oh, by the way, two of those victories are major championships.
I knew Tiger was eventually going to come back, but I don’t think anyone expected him to recover this quickly.
Now that he’s overcome a major swing change, romantic relationship issues and a loss of his close family member, I guess nothing can mess with his mind for a while. If he can maintain his game at this level, he probably won’t have any rivalry on the tour for a long time unless someone named Dragon Iron or something appears in the golf world.
Actually, he does have a major rival on a different tour. Well, to be exact, he did until last week.
When Tiger won the British Open last month for his 11th major title, he sent a text message to Annika Sorenstam, who won the U.S. Women’s Open for her 10th major title a little earlier in the month, to let her know that he is one up. Tiger and Annika live close to each other and often spend their time together on and off the course. But these friendly neighbors have rivalry between each other—the number of major titles.
Last week, the PGA champion sent another text to the world’s best female golfer to remind her he is already two up in the race. I think his text said something like this: “12.”
Unless Annika wins three more majors before Tiger captures the next one, I guess the word rivalry won’t appear in his dictionary.
08-28-2006