OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. – If next week’s PGA Tour stop were called something other than the Buick Classic, I doubt seriously whether Tiger Woods would be headed for Westchester Country Club after today’s final round of the 2003 U.S. Open.
Instead of playing in the Buick, Woods needs to go to his home club in Orlando and rediscover a golf game that is in need of repair, following what has been his most disappointing performance ever in a major championship.
Buick is one of those corporate sponsors that pays Woods big money to talk nice about their cars, and, word is, negotiations on a new contract are in the works. So he’ll honor his commitment next week. But don’t expect him to be in a very good mood when he arrives.
Woods won’t win the 2003 U.S. Open after playing himself out of contention yesterday with a 5-over-par 75 – his worst U.S. Open round ever as a professional.
On a day he was expected to move up the leaderboard, Woods bogeyed six holes, recorded just one birdie and putted as if he had no clue how to deal with the greens at Olympia Fields.
Someone in the gallery whistled during his second shot on the first hole, causing his to shank his shot. “Right on my downswing,” he said. “If it was in my backswing, I could have stopped it.”
But it was the speed of the greens that got him steamed. It took him 35 putts, including three-putt bogeys on the ninth and 15th greens, to complete a round that made the world’s No.1-ranked player look average.
The greens, Woods said, were “slower than they were [Friday]. I really had a hard time convincing myself to hit the ball hard. The greens looked fast and dried out. So it was hard to believe they were slower.”
The greens weren’t his only problem. Woods hit just nine fairways and only 12 greens in regulation. That’s no way to play the Open.
Olympia Fields, with its soft greens, has made this year’s U.S. Open play like the Phoenix Open, but Woods hasn’t taken advantage. Still, he didn’t think he was that far off his game.
Hang around Woods long enough, and you know he’s the last to admit when he’s awful.
“I didn’t play that poorly. I had a lot of good shots, but I never made anything,” he reasoned.
Clearly, the aura that surrounded Woods at Bethpage last summer, when he won his eighth major, is gone. This will be the first time since he won the 1999 PGA Championship that Woods won’t hold at least one major title in a calendar year. Of the 11 majors played since then, Woods has won seven.
That’s why someone asked Woods yesterday if he were in a slump. It was a question that made him bristle.
“I’ve won three tournaments out of the seven events I’ve played this year, and you’re trying to tell me I’m in a slump?” he said before ending his post-round news conference.
Valid point. But those tournaments weren’t the Masters or the U.S. Open. Go back to the 2002 British Open, where he lost a chance at a calendar grand slam on a rainy Saturday, and to the PGA Championship at Hazeltine, where birdies on the final four holes left him one stroke behind Rich Beem, and Woods has made the turn without winning another major.
If that’s being picky, blame Woods. He has made us accustomed to the miraculous. We just expect him to win. We expect him to thrill. When he does neither, his mediocre play equates to failure.
