Don’t Look: He’s Right Behind

CHASKA, Minn.--So, what’s worse? A three-hour storm with thunder that sounds as if someone is dropping bowling balls on your roof?

Or would it be Tiger Woods on your tail at a major championship?

Of course, it’s all a matter of perspective. It all depends on whether you’re the one in the house or the one with a legitimate chance to beat the odds and beat Woods in a major.

To paraphrase Tiger’s line in his Buick commercial, “What, you were expecting Igor?”

No, only the lightning. And that was some serious stuff that was zippering the sky over Hazeltine National Golf Club on opening day, just as it was a serious Tiger playing the first round of the PGA Championship.

At this point, Woods isn’t in the lead, but Tiger is still close enough to cause whiplash to the guys in front of him who are all swiveling their heads to check his position.

The fact is, they have every reason to feel that way.

The record shows that Woods is three shots behind Jim Furyk and Fred Funk, who can be described simply: nice guys, no major championships.

The record would also show that Woods finds himself in decent position with 54 holes to go in the last major championship of the year.

As we know, Woods won the first two and has set his course toward becoming the first person to win three majors in the same year twice. He did it in 2000 when he won the U.S. Open by 15 shots, the British Open by eight shots and the PGA Championship in a playoff.

Now he’s trying to complete a different triple play--the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA--which no one has done before.

This is what Tiger is about these days. His success rate is so high, he must amuse us by the degree of difficulty in how he wins.

Check out his record in the big-time events: in the last 12 majors, Woods has won seven of them.

So here we are at the PGA Championship, which accounts for the second and fifth of Woods’ eight major titles.

Meanwhile, some of the guys ahead of him are still looking for their second.

It is a select group, noteworthy for the fact that while Woods has gone on to another level, these players, for whatever reason, haven’t made that first major title a steppingstone to a second or maybe a third.

Lee Janzen is tied for fifth, one shot ahead of Woods, and he has two U.S. Open titles, in 1993 and in 1998. But you get the feeling that at 37, Janzen’s days of hauling off the big silverware are over.

Davis Love III is tied with Janzen, and his drought has been even longer. It has been five years since Love won the PGA Championship at Winged Foot, his first and only major title. He has seven top 10s since, but he’s 38 and his time is running out.

Jeff Sluman, 44, is in contention with a 70 in the first round and his only major was the 1988 PGA Championship. Tom Lehman, who shot a 71, won the 1996 British Open and has been blanked in majors since. He’s 43.

Of course, neither Furyk nor Funk has won a major, so it’s possible that Woods could be seeing an open field in front of him.

How Woods played in the first round was hardly overpowering, but it was good enough for him that he spent only 30 minutes on the range afterward. What he was concerned about was his driver. He used it seven times and put the ball on the fairway twice. Any other player does that and we’re talking a 75, but Woods is not any other player.

There are four par fives at Hazeltine and Tiger made birdie on only one of them.

Woods says he knows what’s wrong with his swing, which has to be comforting to him and upsetting to everyone trying to beat him. The problem is his takeaway, his backswing. All he needs is some time to get it right. He has three more rounds.

Once again today, Woods will tee it up with defending champion David Toms and British Open champion Ernie Els. It was a much-anticipated grouping Thursday, but it was also one that fell far short of expectations. The threesome combined for a four-over score--Toms had a 77 and Els a par 72 to go with Woods one-under 71.

The real score in this tournament is 155-1. There are 155 guys and there is Tiger Woods. Maybe that’s not fair, but you can be sure it’s the only score Tiger is concerned with.

After he shot an 81 in the third round at Muirfield and ultimately failed in his quest to win the British Open, it was suggested to Tiger that he had lost any reason to win at Hazeltine. Woods treated the idea the same way he would if someone had asked him if he would stuff his prized video game collection down the trash compactor in disgust.

Uh, no, dude. For everyone in contention here, major winner or not, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Like everyone else, Tiger can’t win it on Thursday. That happens on Sunday. It might not even happen to him this time, but that’s not the way he acted once the skies cleared.