News Flash: Tiger Wins

Tiger Woods won the Accenture World Match Play Championship, a World Golf Championship event (trust me, that sounds a lot more important than it actually is), by defeating Stewart Cink 8 & 7 in the 36 hole final match played yesterday. As this wasn't a normal stroke play event, you may be wondering what 8 & 7 means. Prepare to be bored to tears, because I'm going to tell you. In match play, golfers play each other directly – so, if I par the first hole and you bogey it, I win the hole and go 1 up. If I birdie the next and you double bogey it, I go 2 up. Notice I didn't gain three strokes on you when I won that hole, as I would in stroke play. I only won the hole. If you win the third, you trim my lead back to 1 up. Ties are called 'halves'. If we fast forward to later in the match and I'm 4 up with three holes to play, you can't numerically win the match – the best you could hope for would be to beat me on the final three holes and lose 1 down. Since golfers are lazy, we would stop playing the match on the 15^th hole and I would win 4 & 3 - literally 4 up with 3 to play. Another difference between match play and stroke play is concessions. If you're an inch from the hole, I can 'give you' the putt and allow you to pick it up without putting out. If you're three feet from the hole – or 300 yards from the hole for that matter – I can give you that shot as well, but I'd think equally hard about both of those examples. Different players use different tactics when it comes to concessions. For example, some are very generous in the beginning to make you expect putts to be conceded, only to look the other way when you have a testy downhill two footer to win a crucial hole late in the match. Gamesmanship takes many forms on the golf course – just ask Seve Ballesteros and Paul Azinger.

So when Tiger Woods won the World Match Play Championship yesterday 8 & 7 by making 13 birdies in the 29 holes played, he won by an absurd margin and the match was over on the 11^th green of the second 18. Did you read what I just wrote?? 13 birdies! That's birdie on almost half the holes he played.

I'd talk about somebody else, but what's the point?? Phil Mickelson lost some weight... er, Boo Weekley and Sergio Garcia apparently don't like each other... and Michelle Wie tied for last in the LPGA Fields Open after taking a semester off from Stanford. Whoops. Better hit the books, Michelle, because I don't know if chasing that little white ball around is going to pay off after all. At least Tiger lasted a couple of years at Stanford before cashing in. Try some accounting courses - they'll help you add up your scorecards.

Alright, that's enough out of me. And don't pay any attention to the Mike Santa Barbara lovefest below... he's just happy because I made him a burger at 3 am last weekend.

A Grand Woody

Gotta talk some Tiger, dunes.

Earlier this year, Tiger Woods told the world - or, rather, the part of the world that's lame enough to read his blog - that winning the Grand Slam this year is "easily within reason." I was a little surprised when I read that, for two reasons:

(1) Most obviously, because it hasn't been done since Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam on the 11th green at Merion in 1930. And Jones won the US Open, US Amateur, British Open, and British Amateur. Not the same today. Tiger would have to win the Masters (which Jones started), the US Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. Tiger won the Tiger Slam in 2000-2001 by winning the last 3 majors of 2000 and the 2001 Masters, thus holding all four major championship trophies at the same time. I consider that a Grand Slam, but it's definitely not the Grand Slam.

And (2) Because after a few youthful foot-in-mouth indiscretions in 1996 and 1997, Tiger Woods has done an excellent job of keeping his mouth shut and letting his clubs do the talking. He has no reason to talk the talk because he lets other PGA Tour players speak for him. How many times have you seen a golfer play well only to be asked a barrage of questions about how his round compares to Tiger's, or how it will feel to play with Tiger in the final group tomorrow, or his thoughts on Tiger's firstborn?? An interview with Tiger is a nonevent, because he says nothing but fluff when he opens his mouth (a good idea, by the way), and at best he can only reiterate things that the other players have already said.

I'll probably ramble more about my thoughts about Tiger in future posts, but for now, I'll give you some free advice. Watch how Tiger plays in three important upcoming tournaments: The WGC-CA Championship at Doral, The Player's Championship at TPC Sawgrass, and Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village. (He hasn't confirmed that he's playing in these, by the way, but it's a pretty safe bet that he will). All three of these courses are of major championship caliber and the fields are as strong as any. They are a good litmus test to see how he plays in the majors this year. Watch how he strikes the ball and how he works his way around the course. When he hits a bad shot, is he in the rough on the current hole or in the fairway three holes over? Is he taking unnecessary chances, or is he managing the course and his game the way he should? Note that I'm not saying, "If he wins these, he'll win the Grand Slam." Winning assumes he's putting well. Trust me, he'll putt well in the majors. What will derail him is his ballstriking and his course management. And of those two, believe me when I say that ballstriking is his weaker skill.

A final thought. These are the four courses hosting a major this year: Augusta, Torrey Pines, Royal St. Georges, and Valhalla. Tiger has won at Augusta 4 times, at Torrey Pines 6 times (including the Buick Invitational there for the past four consecutive years), never at Royal St. Georges, and he won the last PGA at Valhalla with style. I'm not ready to make the same prediction Tiger did, but keep an eye on him. A certain Lefty could define his career with a well-timed win over Tiger – say, at the PGA after Tiger won the first three?

-Brian