Tiger Woods and the Spirit of Seve
AUGUSTA, Ga. - OK, Tiger -- where you hiding the Seve film?Look, this is the 2008 Masters Tournament, and here is Tiger Woods, playing not all that much like the Tiger Woods we have come to know and expect - even given a glitch or two, here and there - but playing more like Seve Ballesteros, the Swashbuckling Spaniard who was maybe 40-60 to hit the fairway he was aiming at, who sneered at the thought of a lag putt and who preferred to club a course silly than dance with it.
Well, Woods hasn't been playing Augusta National exactly that way through three rounds of this '08 Masters, but you'll forgive the storied course if on occasion it says, “Hey, Seve, que pasa?” and it turns out it was Woods playing through. When it comes to game plans, Woods has been studying the old Ballesteros tapes.
Keep in mind Woods saving par at the 18th from the 10th fairway in the second round, OK? And in the third round Saturday, making par there from the trees, not bothering with the fairway - either the 10th or the 18th.
And as for Ballesteros, never mind that birdie he made out of a parking lot. That was the '79 British Open at Lytham.
For a real hall-of-fame experience, go to the 1980 Masters. Ballesteros is playing the 17th. He hits a mighty hook of a tee shot that carries the trees on the left and ends up on No. 7 green, which is already being played by someone else. When Ballesteros arrives, he finds David Graham waiting patiently, leaning on his putter.
Says Graham: “You got a good chance for a birdie there.”
Ballesteros takes his drop - free, of course - lifts an approach up over the tall trees and onto the 17th green, and then goes and makes his birdie, which is what he had in mind in the first place.
Woods goes into Sunday's final round six shots off the lead, behind Trevor Immelman, and that means he's within reach - his reach, anyway - of his fifth Masters championship. And for this he can thank some play that is pure Tiger Woods but that also has a strong Spanish flavor to it. Something like dunking a burger in gazpacho.
Go to Augusta National's famed theater, the 18th, an uphill dogleg right.
Woods hit his drive into the trees on the right. Finding his preferred route blocked, he elected to punch out farther to the right, into the adjoining 10th fairway. Given the stand of trees, this was akin to knocking a marble through a picket fence. Then he lofted a wedge shot over the trees to 18th green, where his ball touched down and rolled lazily toward the hole. It seemed intent on rolling in but it hit Stuart Appleby's ball, already sitting there, and stopped 6 feet away. Woods dropped that one to save his par for 71. Oh hearing that it hit Appleby's ball, Woods shrugged and said, “Oh, well, I made four.”
We return you now to the 18th Saturday, in the third round. Woods again has hit into the trees on the right. But this time, rather than punch out into either the 18th or 10th fairway, he opted for the direct approach, electing to go through a small opening in the canopy overhead. About 4 feet, he thought.
Did it occur to him that his ball might nick a branch or something?
“No doubt,” Woods said. “I had to either make four or six, one of the two. Might as well go ahead and make four.”
So from the pine straw 180 yards from the green, he hit a 7-iron up through that hole to 45 feet, and he two-putted for a par and a 68.
And thus did Tiger Woods, at the 18th, go from an almost certain 5-5, or a very possible 6-6 over two days, to a 4-4. Meaning he could have been 10 off the lead and dead, or at least eight off, and therefore nearly dead.
Who doesn't win the Masters cannot win the Grand Slam. And there's all this spirited talk that this is Woods' year to win the Grand Slam. He's shot 72-71-68 - 211, 5 under par. Trevor Immelman sits up there at 205, 10 under - a healthy margin ahead, but not completely safe from Woods and the spirit of Seve Ballesteros.
How do you say Grand Slam in Spanish?
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