Tiger’s Pause Won’t Stop Him

Tiger Woods wore all black, which almost matched the color of the sky above the 18th green at Torrey Pines. But did it match his mood?

The Buick Invitational starts today, along with a renewed interest in Woods that is gathering negative strength with each tournament he enters and fails to win. It has been six tournaments since his last PGA Tour victory, a blip for anybody else, but an increasingly irritating and unavoidable fact for Woods, who now finds the subject of his “slump” a regular topic of discussion.

He doesn’t like it much, either. For instance, Woods was defensive--but still smiling--when asked what’s wrong.

“It’s not bad,” he said Wednesday. “It’s not like I’m missing cuts. I’m right there. My worst finish is 13th. I guess that’s terrible.”

In fact, it’s worse than we thought. Notice that in consecutive sentences, Woods used the words “bad,” “cuts,” “worst,” and “terrible,” thus setting a record previously believed to have been retired by Craig Stadler.

Phil Mickelson is the defending champion at the Buick Invitational, but he isn’t getting much of the attention, even though he hasn’t even been able to hit a ball this week because of food poisoning. He ended Woods’ six-tournament winning streak in this event last year, performing so ably down the stretch he probably could have won even if he’d had food poisoning.

Instead, the Winless Tiger Watch continues to dominate the golf news, picking up momentum as it careens along, going nowhere fast. Meanwhile, Woods, who won at Torrey Pines in 1999, believes the matter lost contact with reality a long time ago. He said that he is well aware that there is little difference between winning and not winning.

“It’s a very fine line,” he said. “It’s the lip-outs or a couple of bad shots here and there. It’s getting up and down with momentum going. It’s making a nice little birdie after a solid shot. You get some positive ‘mo’ going.

“I’m not that far off. It’s close. I haven’t played terribly. It’s just a matter of time.”

It has been a while between victories for Woods, who uses a different accounting method than most to tally his triumphs. The last PGA Tour victory for Woods was the Bell Canadian Open on Sept. 10, approximately five months ago. Since then, Woods was third at the National Car Rental Classic, second at the Tour Championship and tied for fifth in the American Express Championship, all in 2000.

In his three PGA Tour events in 2001, Woods tied for eighth at the Mercedes, tied for fifth at Phoenix and tied for 13th at Pebble Beach. That totals six PGA Tour events in a row. However, Woods says his winless streak is really only three tournaments, pointing out that he won the Johnnie Walker Classic on the European Tour, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf (a 36-hole special event) and the World Cup (with partner David Duval) in November and December.

“I guess they don’t count,” Woods said.

Torrey Pines might prove a difficult venue for Woods to break his streak, with its semi-narrow fairways and sometimes bumpy greens. He insists that his game is intact, his putting great, except for the fact that he has had so many balls stay out of the holes that they must be afraid of the dark.

“I’m going to get putts,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time before they go in.”

The players, who would be affected the most if Woods begins another nine-victory season like he had last year, seemed to waste no time backing Woods. “He is human,” Jose Maria Olazabal said. “My goodness, give the guy a break. Please. Six tournaments, that’s nothing. Last year was extraordinary, even by his standards. It’s not completely at all fair to talk about a slump.”

Davis Love III won last week at Pebble Beach to end a streak of 62 tournaments without a victory. Love said he thinks Woods has gotten more questions in the last month about not winning than he did in his nearly three years without a win.

“You see it [in the media], saying ‘What happened?’ What happened is that he’s still the best player in the world,” Love said. “He hasn’t played that many tournaments and it’s real hard to win out here.

“He’s in an unenviable position that when he doesn’t win, he gets more questions . . . but he’s obviously a very strong person and he’ll handle it better than most. Unfortunately, he has to explain a lot. He’s always right there and that’s the sign of a good player. Even when he’s not playing well, he’s still right there.”

Jesper Parnevik said Woods might be more affected by the near-misses on the greens than he admits.

“Last year, he didn’t know what a lip-out meant,” Parnevik said. “Now, he is seeing a few of them . . . that can make a difference. When you know things don’t go your way, sometimes you try too hard and you lose that zone feeling.”

Woods insists that the most important feature of his game is that it peak four times a year, at the majors. Everything else will fall into place, he said. And as for that pesky winless streak, well, remember, it’s not really six.

“I haven’t won in three tournaments,” he said “That’s not a slump, not like some of you think it is.

“I have the same drive. I have the same anticipation of wanting to go out and play well, to put myself in contention and hopefully win. That hasn’t changed. I’m just not that far off. You’ve got to be patient about it and realistic about it. A lot of it is just timing and I haven’t really put it together yet. Maybe I will this week.”

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Tiger Tracks

Comparing Tiger Woods’ results this year to his results through the same number of tournaments last year:

*--*

2001 Category 2000 3 Tournaments 3 0 Wins 2 $319,571 Money $1,506,000 1 Top 5 3 2 Top 10 3 69.25 Scoring avg. 68.58 8 Rounds under par 11 0 Cuts missed 0

*--*

2001

In his third tournament, Woods was never really a factor at Pebble Beach after an opening 66. He finished tied for 13th, eight strokes behind.

2000

In his third tournament, Woods closed with a 65 at Torrey Pines, but Phil Mickelson ended Woods’ six-tournament streak, winning the Buick Invitational by four shots. Woods tied for second.