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Tiger's streak begs major question

With three straight major titles, Woods has a grand opportunity this week. But would it be a Grand Slam?

By BOB HARIG

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 1, 2001

It is a trick question, one meant to elicit an opinion rather than a definitive answer. There is nothing in the golf annals, nothing decreed by the golf gods.

Grand Slam is a catch phrase, a term stolen from another game to describe the incredible feat of winning all four of golf's most coveted championships.

But is it a Grand Slam if the tournaments are not won in the same year?

The assumption is that a player must win all four in a calendar year, although good luck finding such a stipulation. There is no rule in the record books, no order from golf's governing bodies.

Never has a player won the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship in the same year.

Only five players -- Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods -- have won them all, period.

Woods will arrive at Augusta National Golf Club this week with the eyes of the golf world upon him. When he tees off in the 65th Masters on Thursday, Woods will attempt to win his fourth consecutive major championship.

He made history last year by joining Hogan as the only players in the modern era to win three majors in the same year. As soon as Woods won the PGA Championship with a playoff victory over Bob May the questions started.

Tiger, will you consider it a Grand Slam if you win the Masters in April?

Woods said he would.

And a lively debate ensued.

Asked about the scenario a few weeks ago, Arnold Palmer practically came out of his chair.

"That is ridiculous," said Palmer, who joins Nicklaus as the only players in the past 40 years to claim the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year. "If he wins it, he's starting a new one. It's not a continuation of last year. That takes the fun out of it. That takes away the kick out of winning the Grand Slam.

"What you're saying is that (Bobby) Jones, if he had won the British Open, the British Amateur and the U.S. Open and then a year later won the U.S. Amateur, then that would be the Grand Slam. And that's not the case."

That's where this whole Slam thing got started. Jones, the great amateur golfer who founded Augusta National and the Masters, won all four of what were considered to be major championships in 1930: the U.S. Amateur and Open, along with the British Amateur and Open.

Jones was the game's ultimate major player. Of the 21 majors he entered from 1923 through 1930, he won 13, lost two in playoffs and finished second twice. He confided in no one his plan to try to win all four majors in a single season except writer O.B. Keeler, who came up with the Grand Slam term from bridge, the card game, where sweeping seven tricks is called a grand slam.

The Slam was completed at the Merion Cricket Club, where Jones won the U.S. Amateur and retired from competitive golf. The feat was never matched; the idea of a Slam wasn't broached again for 30 years.

When Hogan won the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in 1953, no talk of a Slam existed. Qualifying for the British Open then overlapped with the PGA Championship. It would have been impossible to play in all four. It wasn't until Palmer won the Masters and U.S. Open in 1960 that the idea of a "new" Slam emerged. Somewhere on the way to the British Open at St. Andrews, Palmer and golf writer Bob Drum of the Pittsburgh Press discussed what it would mean if Palmer won the Open Championship and later won the PGA.

"I said, "Wouldn't this be unique to have a Grand Slam of Golf?' And Bob wrote about it and it's gone on from there," Palmer, 71, said. "That's how it really got to be what we know now as the modern Grand Slam."

Palmer lost that British Open by one shot to Kel Nagle. "But in the ensuing years when I won the Masters (1962 and '64), there was no question about the fact that it was in the back of my head all the time."

No player again won the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year until Nicklaus in 1972. Like Palmer, he failed at the British Open by a shot. Lee Trevino won.

"I am sure there was pressure, but I felt fairly confident going over there and playing," Nicklaus, 61, recalled. "That's part of the deal. I always liked that. I was the only one that could win (all four)."

Interesting note: Due to a scheduling quirk, Nicklaus held three majors at the same time. He won the '71 PGA when it was played in February, so he went to the '72 Open at Muirfield with a chance to claim all four trophies. "Nobody ever brought it up," Nicklaus said of a possible Grand Slam.

For all his greatness, however, Nicklaus had difficulty overcoming disappointment at Augusta. If he didn't win, it was a huge letdown. The idea of capturing a Grand Slam was clearly on his mind.

"That is what I thought about every year, that was my whole goal," Nicklaus said. "And I hurt myself several times if I didn't win Augusta; my year was shot. I just didn't even want to play the rest of the year. I finally started kicking myself in the rear end, I said that is sort of stupid."

Nicklaus won the Masters in '63, '65, '66, '72, '75 and '86, but other than '72, was never much of a threat to win the Slam. In fact, Nicklaus won 18 majors, but two in the same year only five times ('63, '66, '72, '75 and '80).

As for Woods, Nicklaus said: "I don't think I am the guy to determine that. Grand Slam is winning all four of them in one year. What is your year, calendar or fiscal? It would be pretty special whatever it is."

Said Sam Snead, 88, who never won the U.S. Open: "If he wins Augusta, I guess he can't say he's won all four in one year, can he? It has to be in the same year. It's simple. At least I would think so. But here's something: He can say, "Well, I've got all four at the same time.' That's not too bad, is it?"

That's what Woods has been saying.

"There's two thoughts: Obviously, one is you've got to do it in the calendar year, which I'm not going to deny," Woods said. "It's harder to do because you have to win the Masters to start off with.

"Or you can get hot during the summer, which I did, and continue -- and then turn it on in the spring. Hopefully, if I win the Masters it will be considered the Slam. And in my estimation it would be, because I would hold all four at the same time."

How inconceivable is this? Nick Price in 1994 was the last player to win consecutive majors, the British Open and PGA Championship. "If I had won the Masters (in '95), I would have had every man and his dog asking me questions," Price said. Before that, it was Tom Watson in 1982 at the U.S. Open and British Open. Greg Norman led all four majors through 54 holes in 1986 but won only the British Open.

"I truly believe a Slam is possible," Norman said. "Guys win four tournaments in a year, why couldn't it be the four majors?"

Norman believes if Woods wins the Masters, it should be considered a Slam. "Absolutely." So does Price. "You have all four trophies in your hand at the same time, that's good enough to be a Grand Slam. To the purists, it isn't. But I'd take it."

Woods knows he first must win the tournament, one he first won in 1997. Then the debate can really rage.

"It would be a great problem to have," he said.

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