Monday, August 16, 1999
Tiger Woods lives a life in fast-forward
By Michael Weinreb
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MEDINAH, ILL. — Just one meager pump of the fist, and
then he stood limply, eyes closed, head down, his narrow frame
wracked with exhaustion. There was no smile, no grinning acknowledgment
of the roars and the snapping flashbulbs, and Tiger Woods nearly
stumbled off the 18th green and into a bear hug from his coach,
Butch Harmon.
So his second major championship did not slide into place like
the first, like that 1997 Masters, all fiery red with emotion
and social significance. This week at the PGA Championship at
Medinah Country Club, Tiger Woods was roasted by reporters and
heckled by fans and by the time that final putt fell, it was all
he could do to stay on both feet before finding someplace where
he could collapse.
“This whole week,” he said, “was a tough week.”
It's not just this week. It goes back, to 1997, to the day
Tiger Woods, at 21, slipped on that green jacket at Augusta and
became the center of golf's universe. It's been two years of public
scrutiny and backlash and jealousy, two years of mistakes and
missteps and misinterpretations. Some of it is deserved, some
of it is undeserved. Some of it is his fault, and some of it is
our fault.
But remember this: It has been two years to grow up. It has
been two years to streamline his swing, to reform his game, to
sign thousands of autographs and start his own foundation and
inspire every elementary-school kid who's ever picked up a golf
club.
Two years to change a sport. Two years to change himself.
A life in fast-forward.
xxxxxx
There were fans heckling Tiger Woods on Sunday. This is the
backlash against fame and money and success in youth. Here he
was, along with Sergio Garcia, providing us with the most dramatic
major championship since the days of Watson and Nicklaus, and
some idiot can't resist yelling, “A thousand dollars says
you slice it in the water!”
If there is a lesson in this day, it's that people are fickle.
Here was Tiger, who hadn't won a major in his last 10 tries,
and sure, had made some very capitalistic and selfish remarks
about compensation for playing in the Ryder Cup, and sure, had
flooded the market with his image. And here came Garcia charging
forward, the 19-year-old Spaniard who belongs on 1950s sitcom.
He was fresh and new and hadn't done a dozen Nike commercials,
and people embraced him like a fresh loaf of bread at the supermarket.
Certainly nothing wrong with that.
But at 23, for some restless souls, for some reason I can't
comprehend, Tiger Woods has become stale. Old news.
A life in fast-forward.
“It's just the new changes,” Woods said, “and
the new faces coming into golf.”
And what is Tiger? Old news? When did this happen? When did
golf become like modeling or acting, where a face can only grace
so many magazine covers before it becomes old news and disappears
into the folds of obscurity?
This is to take nothing from Garcia. But if you saw Woods on
the 17th hole on Sunday, the way he steeled himself before stroking
an eight-foot putt that curled inside the left edge, the most
unnerving putt of his career, then you know there is something
special going on here.
“I don't think it would be out of the question,”
said Mark O'Meara, “to see Tiger Woods win 12 or 15 major
championships.”
Those who refuse to acknowledge that fact, who aren't enjoying
this realm of possibility, have no idea what they're missing.
These are the glory days of golf, courses being built on every
spare patch of land, the game's ethnic barriers being shredded.
“Golf is not really a sport that has allowed kids to play,
who are of color,” Woods said. “But that's changing.
And it's changing very quickly.”
And so is Tiger Woods. Two years of scrutiny. Two years of
fame. Two years of maturity.
A life in fast-forward.
His second major will not be remembered for the way it changed
a sport. It will not be singled out for its lasting social impact.
It will be remembered for the way he defeated a boy on his way
to becoming a man.
It can be a lonely journey. That's how it was Sunday for Woods,
who battled self-doubt and longing and uncertainty. And when he
finally found someone who supported him unconditionally, someone
like Harmon, he buried himself in that embrace and hung on for
dear life.
(c) 1999, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron,
Ohio).
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