What else is left for Tiger Woods to devour?
Plenty. The 2002 Grand Slam, for instance.
After his convincing wire-to-wire U.S. Open victory yesterday at Bethpage Black, Woods is halfway to his next history-altering goal and he’s on a cold-blooded mission to close the deal.
Go ahead, bet against him. It’s your money.
Woods has won seven of the last 11 major championships. He’s now tied for fifth all-time with Tom Watson with eight majors
“As a kid you just dreamt of winning just one,” Woods said. “It’s so hard to describe how good it feels to win a major championship.”
The last player to begin a year by winning the Masters and U.S. Open was Jack Nicklaus in 1972. He finished second at the British Open that year and then tied for 13th at the PGA Championship.
Bobby Jones is the only man to record a Grand Slam – winning all four majors in one year. The year was 1930. The tournaments back then were the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur, the British Open and the British Amateur, because there were no Masters or PGA Championships around back then.
It’s considered one of the most difficult feats to accomplish in all of sports. Woods is 144 holes away.
“I’ve won the Slam before,” Woods said. “I’ve won four major titles in a row and no one has ever done that, not four professional majors, and that’s something I’m proud of. You can call it what you want, but when I was at home, I had all four trophies on my mantle. No other person can say that.
“So, this will be a different kind of slam, it being the calendar year. It’s certainly doable, because I’ve done it before. Hopefully, I can do it again.”
There are a number of his peers who believe Woods will to it again.
“Muirfield and Hazel- tine (where the PGA will be played in August) are right up his alley,” Nick Price said. “Hazeltine is long and Muirfield . . . Tiger like links courses.”
“I think Muirfield sets up well for Tiger,” Jose Maria Olazabal said. “He should be very comfortable there.”
That, of course, should make Woods’ competitors uncomfortable.
Nick Faldo, who as a Brit is highly familiar with Muirfield, having won two British Opens there, agreed with Olazabal, believing that Woods will have little problem with it.
“That’s the great thing about Tiger, he’s a bit like the tennis players,” Faldo said. “You’ve got to learn four different surfaces. That’s what a player of his caliber needs. He’ll come up with a game plan. Once he leaves here, he’ll be thinking about it.”
For the second consecutive major, Woods was like a frisky cat, dealing with his challengers the way a feline deals with a mouse, playing with them until he got bored and went in for the kill.
Like he did at the Masters in April, Woods tantalizing dangled this Open out there on a string for his competitors to come and get, and then, in the last possible moment, he pounced, crushing his competitors’ collective will and taking the trophy home with him.
Yesterday, Woods overcame an uncharacteristically shaky start, carding three-putt bogeys on the first two holes after going the first 54 holes of the tournament with only one three-jack. That suddenly cut a four-shot lead in half.
“He wasn’t in danger at any time,” Tiger’s father, Earl Woods, told The Post from his Long Island hotel room, where he watched the tournament. “He was on cruise control.”
T. Woods – 67-68-70-72 277
Phil Mickelson – 70-73-67-70 – 280
Jeff Maggert – 69-73-68-72 – 282
Sergio Garcia – 68-74-67-74 – 283
Scott Hoch – 71-75-70-69 – 285
Nick Faldo – 70-76-66-73 – 285
Billy Mayfair – 69-74-68-74 – 285
Nick Price – 72-75-69-70 – 286
Tom Byrum – 72-72-70-72 – 286
Padraig Harrington – 70-68-73-75 – 286
Peter Lonard – 73-74-73-67 – 287
Jay Haas – 73-73-70-72 – 288
Dudley Hart – 69-76-70-73 – 288
Justin Leonard – 73-71-68-76 – 288
Robert Allenby – 74-70-67-77 – 288
Steve Stricker – 72-77-69-71 – 289
Shigeki Maruyama – 76-67-73-73 – 289
Steve Flesch – 72-72-75-71 – 290
Thomas Levet – 71-77-70-72 – 290
Luke Donald – 76-72-70-72 – 290
Craig Stadler – 74-72-70-74 – 290
Charles Howell III – 71-74-70-75 – 290
Mark O’Meara – 76-70-69-75 – 290
Darren Clarke – 74-74-72-71 – 291
Chris DiMarco – 74-74-72-71 – 291
Jimmy Carter – 77-73-70-71 – 291
Jeff Sluman – 73-73-72-73 – 291
Ernie Els – 73-74-70-74 – 291
Davis Love III – 71-71-72-77 – 291
Paul Lawrie – 73-73-73-73 – 292
Jason Caron – 75-72-72-73 – 292
Vijay Singh – 75-75-67-75 – 292
K.J.Choi – 69-73-73-77 – 292
TWO LEGS DOWN…
A look at what stands between Tiger Woods and Grand slam immortality:
British Open PGA Championship
Date July 15-21 Date: August 12-18
Course: Muirfield Golf Links East Lothian, Scotland Course: Hazeltine National Golf Club, Chaska, MN
Yards: 7,034 Yards: 7,360
Par: 36-35-71 Par: 36-36-72
