Tracking Tiger

The talent is awesome. Money is literally no object. Success has come quicker than anyone thought possible. What could possibly go wrong for Tiger Woods?

Actually, a lot.

There are a few glitches in his game that need to be worked out.

And still to be seen is how Woods will handle adversity when he hits the inevitable down spell or blows a major tournament.

But the biggest dangers facing Woods, according to several professionals who have experienced the joys and sorrows of the spotlight, are burnout, the pressures of unreasonable expectations and handling his public image.

If Woods, who turns 21 on Dec. 30, has financial security as his goal, his work is done. His endorsement deals with Nike, Titleist, Cobra and the richest golf book deal ever with Warner Books have taken care of that.

If his goal is to be the best golfer ever, there is still plenty of work to do. The true test of a champion is not the Las Vegas Invitational or the Disney Classic. The yardstick is the major championships.

“When you have to perform for financial reasons versus historical reasons, those are two completely different kinds of pressure,” PGA Championship winner Mark Brooks said after Woods won his second tournament. “And they’re going to build on Tiger. He’s gotten off to the kind of start where the expectations that are going to be placed on him are going to be tremendous.”

How Woods handles the pressures of those expectations will be one test of his stature. No one handled that pressure better than Nancy Lopez, who at the age of 21 won nine LPGA tournaments in 1978, including five in a row.

“I probably didn’t realize at the time how incredible that was,” Lopez said recently. “I try to look back now modestly. But I think I will always know what Tiger is going through.”

Lopez said her sudden success generated such burdens as jealousy from other players, pressure from sponsors to play every week and trying to reserve time for family and practice without appearing aloof.

“The first few years I said ‘yes’ to everything, and he can do that for a while, too,” Lopez said. “But he’s going to get burned out if he does everything they ask him to do.”

The “they” in this case would be International Management Group, the superagency that negotiated Woods’ big deals. But IMG has a strong international agenda and wants to market Woods overseas, particularly in Asia, where golf is booming.

Woods, who played eight tournaments in nine weeks in his rush to get his PGA Tour card for 1997, took two weeks off. Then it was off to the Australian Open, followed by last weekend’s Skins Game where he won $40,000. Today he completes the JCPenney Classic.

It’s has been busy three weeks during the so-called off-season. Especially questionable was the Australia trip for a reported $200,000 appearance fee.

But again, golf greatness is determined by British Open or U.S. Open titles, not Australian Open titles. It would seem that with all Woods’ lucrative endorsement deals, a $200,000 appearance fee wouldn’t be worth the trip.

Woods’ appearance in Australia, however, will be worth much more than $200,000 to IMG down the road as it continues to market golf in Australia and Asia. Another hefty appearance fee will get Woods back to Australia in January for the Johnnie Walker Classic.

What all this travel likely will mean is fewer U.S. appearances for Woods, something that could make him appear ungrateful to sponsors and fans here.

“I haven’t even made up my schedule for next year yet,” Woods said in mid-November. “I will play the Mercedes Championships, Pebble Beach and the majors, but I don’t know beyond that.

One thing Woods has already learned is that playing eight events in nine weeks is too much.

“I found that four in a row is my maximum,” he said.

Ben Crenshaw, a three-time NCAA champion who won in his fourth pro start, also knows about the burdens of expectations.

“We have not seen anyone come along like Tiger since the days of Palmer and Nicklaus,” Crenshaw said. “I think the most difficult thing for Tiger to do right now is learn to pace himself.”

Brooks said that burnout can come both from competing too much and from the weight of expectations.

“I think burnout is definitely one of the dangers,” Brooks said. “And burnout meaning the expectations are set so high by everyone surrounding him--media, even his own little inner group--that the potential for setting such lofty goals that are unreasonable to attain, I think, could lead to a lot of pressure.”

If IMG is in the crucial position of budgeting Wood’s time and travel, it also must play an active role managing his image.

That image was slightly tarnished when Woods suddenly withdrew from the Buick Classic, citing exhaustion. The move would have been acceptable if Woods hadn’t also blown off the Haskins Award dinner at which he was to be honored as the college golfer of the year.

Woods later apologized and made a special trip back to Georgia for a rescheduled dinner, but the damage was done.

And Woods, whose shyness sometimes comes across as aloofness, could stand to take a few lessons from fellow IMG client Arnold Palmer on how to be fan-friendly. He is so focused any time he is on a golf course that he sometimes comes off as brusque.

One example came at the Las Vegas Invitational--his first PGA Tour victory--when he shrugged off an autograph request from two kids who were the standard bearers in his group during the final round.

“He always has to remember where he came from,” Lopez said. “He’s going to have a lot of responsibility. He’s going to have to look at it and accept it now.

“I was never shy. That’s why people took to me. I answered every question and not just with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ but with my whole life story.”

Maybe that is a little too much to expect from Woods. But it would be nice if all those youth clinics he loved to give so much as an amateur remain on his schedule.

For now, Woods seems focused on fixing the glitches in his game he will need to control to win major championships.

He still misses too many short putts. He makes a lot of 25-footers but misses too many 5-footers, the kind of putts Nicklaus never missed in a crucial situation.

Woods still has a tendency to miss greens long with over-aggressive approach shots and get wild with the driver. He also needs more variety in his short game.

“I’ve had two four-putts and I’ve had umpteen three-putts,” Woods said in assessing his start on tour. “In Canada, I hit four water balls. I’ve hit a lot of balls in the trees where I’ve had to pitch out. I haven’t played my best yet.”

Still, he won two tournaments and finished in the top five in five of his eight events.

Woods’ best golf may be yet to come. But greatness is by no means a gimme for him.

There is a lot more to stardom than talent.