GOLF: U.S. OPEN -Tiger Woods- can he play again?
Woods finds a will and a way
World No. 1 wins 14th major in dramatic playoff, but has to fight through pain and a never-say-die opponent
LORNE RUBENSTEIN
rube@sympatico.ca
June 17, 2008
It wasn’t long after Tiger Woods had won the U.S. Open Championship yesterday in a playoff over Rocco Mediate when he said it was his most meaningful victory. That says something, given he’d already won 13 other major tournaments and 51 PGA Tour events.
Woods didn’t say his win meant so much because of the pain he was in because of a sore left knee. He chooses not to speak publicly about his physical problems, but he had to feel the win meant that much more because he had to play through intense pain.
Woods had surgery on the knee on April 15. He was hurting during the 72 holes of regulation play and the 19 holes he went yesterday to overcome Mediate. His win was a function of will as much as it was of pure talent. Or, to put it another way, it was a matter of won’t, as in, “I won’t let the knee stop me.”
When it was all over, Woods said as much.
“I wasn’t going to bag it,” Woods said. “That’s not my nature. I don’t know how to do it.”
Woods wasn’t wincing or in evident pain the final nine holes of regulation play on Sunday or during yesterday’s playoff, which was scheduled for 18 holes but went an extra hole because he and Mediate had remained tied. Woods had said on Sunday that he had taken something for the pain. Presumably, he did the same yesterday.
Whatever his pain level, it only served to help him demonstrate how much game he has, which isn’t to say he had control of his driver during the U.S. Open. He hit just seven of 14 fairways yesterday, for example. Still, the shots he hit on the par-5 18th hole on Saturday, more than any of the others, were improvisational wonders. They defined his determination and the vast range of shots at his disposal.
Woods was in serious pain playing down the stretch on Saturday. He wanted to put the ball into the fairway to have a chance to go for the 18th green over a pond. But his normal swing would put too much pressure on his left knee. Woods twists that knee hard through impact and straightens his leg when he wants to go after a drive. But he couldn’t do that then.
And so he elected to play a big cut with a 5-wood. His caddy, Steve Williams, said it was a 50-yard slice. Woods had 225 yards to the hole, for which he would probably hit a 4-iron under normal circumstances. He’d usually play the shot way up in the air and on a straight line.
His knee wouldn’t allow him to hit the shot, so he aimed far to the left. Even Woods can easily double-cross such an out-of-the-box shot and send the ball flying into parts unknown, in this case way to the left. Woods hit the shot anyway. The ball finished 25 feet or so behind the hole, and he made the putt for a closing eagle that got him into the final twosome on Sunday with Lee Westwood. It also gave him the lead in the championship.
That was sheer will. He then stood on the same 18th green on Sunday, the last man on the course and needing to hole a 12-foot birdie putt to tie Mediate and force the playoff yesterday. Woods seemed to go into a trance as he studied the putt and then he made it.
He was the overwhelming favourite to win the playoff. But Mediate, the David to Woods’s Goliath, relished the situation and distinguished himself from start to finish. He isn’t exactly lacking in will himself, and he had the U.S. Open in his grasp when he stood over an 18-foot birdie putt on that 18th green yesterday.
The putt didn’t go down, and then Woods holed his four-footer for a birdie to tie Mediate and extend the playoff. He parred, Mediate bogeyed and Woods had won his third U.S. Open.
What now? Woods all but admitted to the Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner yesterday that he went against medical advice by playing. He said he plans to re-evaluate his health and didn’t indicate when he will play again. The British Open will be played from July 17 through 20. He would hate to miss it, but he refuses to divulge the extent of his knee problems and so it’s impossible to know whether he will play.
As for Mediate, he proved that, as he said, “I can handle the unbelievable heat this man will put on you.”
Mediate won fans all over the world, but Woods won the trophy. He won it on one leg, and he won it with will. Tiger Woods is a force of nature.
