Putting Woods' drive for five in perspective

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By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 14, 2001

TULSA, Okla. -- The shadow arrives long before the player. It darkens the tee box and creeps toward the fairway, engulfing everyone else, obscuring everything else.

Tiger Woods is approaching. You can see nothing else, and why would you bother to look? Nothing else matters. All the other golfers are nondescript shapes. All other discussion is irrelevant.

Such is the world of Tiger and his shadow, which casts over all things in golf. He is bigger than the field, bigger than the event, perhaps bigger than the sport, and still he grows. His legend is everywhere, in the hearts of the fans and in the heads of his competitors.

Oh, yes, and he's all over the leaderboard.

Already.

Yeah, yeah. I know what you're thinking. Officially, the U.S. Open doesn't begin until today. It doesn't matter. As of Wednesday, Tiger was up by four strokes. By the time you finish breakfast, the lead may be up to six. Catch him if you can.

Ask around. Look into the eyes of his competitors, who seem to have accepted their fate. Listen to the voices of the legends, who acknowledge that at 25, Woods has surpassed them. If you made a movie of the PGA Tour, it would be called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Challenger.

The thing is, as big as Tiger has become, he is still growing. This weekend he chases his fifth consecutive major title. In a sport where winning one major carries the mark of greatness -- ask Tommy Bolt, Tom Kite, Tom Weiskopf -- Woods has made winning the big tournaments look as easy as walking outside and picking up the morning paper.

Five. Think about it. Winning one major is a dream. Two is validation the first one wasn't a fluke. Three makes you special. Four makes you a legend. Tiger is going for five.

In a row.

Do not be fooled by the ease with which Woods has slammed the rest of the tour. In his victories in the U.S. Open, British, PGA and Masters, he has been a combined 65 strokes under par. The nearest competitors were 20 strokes behind. He has won on long courses and tight courses and foreign courses. He has led wire to wire, and he has come from behind. He has won because of his length, because of his short game, because of his putter.

Five. It sounds like a small number. It isn't. Winning four in a row has included 16 rounds, 288 holes and 1,083 strokes. That's a lot of chances to mess up. What can stop him? Well, his father suggests, perhaps a wife.

Five. How big would five be?

It would be bigger than the Dolphins' 17-0 season. Yes, Miami was perfect. But it had a few gimmie putts. There are no gimmie putts in a major championship.

Five wouldn't be as big Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, a remarkable individual achievement in the middle of a remarkable team achievement (five straight world championships by the Yankees). Woods would be better, however, than Pete Rose's 44-game streak.

Five would be bigger than Johnny Unitas' 47-game streak of throwing a touchdown pass. Unitas is my all-time favorite athlete, but have you ever seen films of football in those days? There were two coverages, one of which consisted of chasing Lenny Moore across the goal line.

But five wouldn't be as big as Michael Jordan winning six NBA titles his last six full seasons of play. When you consider how Jordan carried those teams, it's still better. To equal it, Woods would have to win this tournament and the British Open.

Five would be bigger than Mark McGwire's 70 home runs. Nothing against McGwire, but a lot of his home runs came against bad pitchers. Besides, Woods is playing for championships.

But five wouldn't be as big as Rocky Marciano going 49-0 with 43 knockouts. If you remember, Marciano fought before Don King invented the palooka.

Five would be bigger than the 11 straight tournaments Byron Nelson won in 1945. Come on. Only 16 people in America played golf that year, tops. Just kidding. But Nelson's streak did not include a slam. So it wasn't as good.

But five wouldn't be bigger than the Celtics winning 10 of 12 NBA titles, eight of them in a row.

It would be bigger than Pete Sampras' seven Wimbledon titles. Sampras was created for grass. Winning one tournament a lot of times isn't as good as winning a lot of tournaments in a row.

But five wouldn't be as big as Jackie Robinson kicking down the damn door in '47.

In other words, it would be bigger than Hannibal but not as big as Attila, bigger than the Rolling Stones but not as big as the Beatles, bigger than Lindbergh but not as big as Armstrong. It would be bigger than Batman but still a couple of tournaments short of Superman. It would be the best thing golf has seen. But when you think of the future, it might not be the biggest thing golf will see.

No one questions anymore whether Woods can perform such miracles. More and more, it seems the only person who can beat Woods is Woods. When he says he is hitting the ball well, you can almost feel the others shudder.

The legends chuckle when they talk about him. Tom Watson says Woods has the field intimidated and that it's getting worse. Younger players try not to admit it, but they are reduced to talking about playing perfectly and hoping he does not. Hal Sutton was quoted the other day as saying he was lying in bed, thinking about Tiger and how Tiger can be beaten. But Sutton missed the point. He was lying in bed thinking about Tiger. What does that tell you? Do you think Tiger was in bed thinking about Hal Sutton? Or anyone else, for that matter?

The question, then, is not whether Woods can win this U.S. Open. It's whether he can win from now until the next one.

And this: Who is going to stop him?

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