Woods’ Score Is Over, but Smile Is Up to Par

This isn’t what Tiger Woods expected. To be fair, this isn’t what anyone expected. From being the biggest favorite to win in the history of the U.S. Open to scuffling around and barely making the cut, that is not a slight wobble, it’s a gigantic tremor.

So why is Tiger so calm?

After all, it’s one thing to be knocking the ball into every ZIP Code in Oklahoma, as Tiger did Friday at Southern Hills, and it’s another to act as if it wasn’t bothering him.

It was sort of eerie, almost as if the Tiger fist-pump was outlawed for a day.

Tiger three-putts and smiles. He misses the green from the fairway with a pitching wedge and shakes his head and smiles. His ball rolls off the green and into a sand divot and he grins. He recounts his round of one-over 71 and smiles. You add it up and figure that he is going soft or something.

But be smart. Do not be fooled by this Tiger trick.

When part of your game is intimidation, as it surely is with Woods, you do not want the guys to see you sweat, know that you’re worried.

What Tiger said Friday was that it was one of those days, that all he needed was a good round to get back into it, that he didn’t really hit the ball that poorly, that he never once thought about the cut.

What he meant to say was that he can’t play much worse, that all he wants to do is land the ball where he’s aiming more than once in a row, that he barely made one important putt all day.

But Tiger doesn’t say any of that and smiles instead.

It’s probably a better approach than whirlybirding his clubs, chewing out his caddie, storming off the course without comment and chopping up his hotel room with a club.

Tiger never said he was going to win the U.S. Open, only that he liked his chances. But if you were reading his body language Friday, it was almost as though he doesn’t feel that way any more . . . that he doesn’t have it, he knows he doesn’t have it and he’s dropping clues all over the place so that we all will know for darned sure he doesn’t have it.

Now, the question is whether this is a transient condition or a major problem.

If you’re Tiger, you’ve been on a joy ride in the majors for a year, since last June at Pebble Beach, where he won the Open by 15 shots.

A month later, he won the British Open at St. Andrews and completed a career Grand Slam. A month after that, he was the first player to successfully defend his PGA Championship title in 63 years.

At the next major, the Masters two months ago in April, he became the first player to hold all four major championships at the same time.

So when Tiger pulled up to the doorsteps of Southern Hills as the even-money favorite, there was really only one way to go and it wasn’t the direction he’s used to traveling. Tiger was set up for failure.

You can be certain that there are a lot of people who hope that happens, because Woods has his share of detractors, no matter how popular he is in most circles.

It’s difficult to see what Woods has done to acquire critics, because all he does is win with class, but that’s for someone else to explain. After all, players such as David Duval and Tom Lehman and Ernie Els and the others Woods has beaten with regularity know he’s good for the game and they’re the ones who should be the most upset.

The Open has always figured to be the major that would be toughest for Woods to win, with its narrow fairways and tricky greens. At Augusta National and at most of the British Open venues, the driving areas are more wide open, which allows him to hit his driver a lot more than at Southern Hills and its two par-five holes. And PGA setups are not as punitive and demanding as U.S. Open venues.

Because of the way Woods obliterated the field at Pebble Beach in last year’s Open, it was natural to figure he could do it again this time, or at least come close. So far, at least, it hasn’t happened.

There is time, not much of it, but with two days and 36 holes left for Woods to climb back into his car to continue his joy ride, you can’t really count him out. Not yet. We’ll wait and see if there are smiles to go.