Masters 2010: returning Tiger Woods wrestles desperately with himself at Augusta National
The business of becoming a better man did not seem much of a consolation as the last of the fireworks went out. And for that ‘the game of golf’, as it is known in this precinct, can be thankful.
By Kevin Garside in Augusta
Published: 12:49AM BST 12 Apr 2010
All that talk of golf coming second to personal development was exposed for the rehabilitation babble it was. Benevolence will be of no use to Tiger Woods in the next phase of his personal journey if he is to see off the new generation of scene stealers, led by America’s latest firebrand, Anthony Kim.
Woods had no business teeing off in the penultimate group on the final day of the Masters. He was playing pin the tail on the donkey for much of this week and for most of yesterday, yet still attacked the leaderboard with menace. Eagle, birdie, birdie featured at seven, eight and nine, but not before bogey, bogey, bogey at one, four and five had taken him out of the winning loop.
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Woods is revered for his 1997 plunder of Augusta. The score he posted in his first major as a pro is the lowest in the tournament’s history, his margin of victory, a dozen shots, the largest. Woods was 21, golf was in a lather, and little has been the same since for him or the game.
None would seek to deny the totemic significance of the story begun that day yet his performance this week, irrespective of outcomes yesterday, has arguably surpassed it. None expected the knock at the door 13 years ago. He knew the numbers were in him. We didn’t.
Thirteen years on Woods arrived at Augusta trailing the greatest scandal the sport has known. His romp through the killing fields of infidelity brought the moral house down and the guns of power and celebrity, hitherto his protectors, were turned on him.
Irrespective of one’s ethical position, and few would endorse Woods’s ransacking of the institutions of family and marriage, it required a monumental effort to compartmentalise the world’s opprobrium and swing a club in practice never mind pull one from the bag on the first tee of the Masters.
It is his endless capacity for mental bench pressing, even more than his ball striking, even more than his peak putting stroke, that has propelled Woods beyond the field into golfing lore. It was that quality that kept him in contention on his return to the sport and betrayed the idea that Woods has undergone fundamental change. He is all he ever was, dedicated to his own cause.
His opening tee shot, described with understatement as a “mess” by Nick Faldo, saw him pretty much wrap his driver around his neck. The ball landed on the left-hand side of the ninth fairway, from where on Thursday, playing in the opposite direction, he curled his ball around the trees onto the green. Adam Scott and Steve Flesch, playing the ninth legitimately, walked past Woods doing comedy double takes.
The pivotal moments around Augusta are measured in oohs and aahs. Unable to respond to the urging of the gallery, though his brilliant rescue over the trees was worthy of note, Woods bogeyed the first to start with an ooh. It was ultimately the anthem of his day. The third was another tale of woe recovered only by his refusal to accept conclusions suggested by logic.
A lot has been written about the golfing diet this week, Westwood’s fruit and fibre versus Ian Poulter’s pie and spud surges. Among his other dependencies Woods must be hooked on spinach given the absence of delicacy yesterday with the wedge.
Those Popeye-like forearms sprayed his chip shot over the green, requiring Woods to feather a putt into the hole that could easily have stayed out.
Maybe we were seeing the rust concealed by his preternatural efforts of the first three days. His tee shot at the par-three fourth left him short and left. The chip was again heavy and the putt slippery as hell. This time his ball slid across the hole for a second bogey. Woods was back to six under, six off the lead.
Another shot went at the fifth leaving Woods in a desperate wrestle with himself to conjure something from the day. Woods needed a break, a freebie from fate to stop the bleeding. Bang on cue his approach to seven spun back into the hole for an eagle from nowhere. At last a roar for Tiger.
Conventional birdies at eight and nine saw him to the turn in one under par and only three off the lead, the signal in the past for the field to take cover. That was never on yesterday, despite the eagle thrown in at 15 and the birdie at the last that helped him to a 69. But tomorrow? This was as bad as it is likely to get. And his rivals know it.
