This Dream Isn’t Possible

As soon as he left the clubhouse at Muirfield and walked toward his car, Tiger Woods was surrounded by a crush of fans. He didn’t stop for fear of being trampled.

It was his usual assortment of followers. One guy in the crowd carried a homemade periscope constructed out of cardboard, complete with a tiny stuffed tiger on top. Two others had painted their faces in stripes. Someone else had given Tiger’s mother, Kultida, a handmade toy tiger.

There must have been two dozen fans surrounding the car. As Woods climbed inside, an arm jutted out of the crowd. It belonged to a man holding a plate. On the plate were a half-dozen pieces of sushi.

Uh, excuse me ... sushi? What did he want Tiger to do, autograph it or eat it?

The poor guy was probably crestfallen because Woods was looking the other way and never saw the plate intended for him. Tiger roared down the driveway and was gone, leaving only the sound of rubber on asphalt and the sight of a full plate of sushi and no one to give it to.

It was a small scene played out in the shadow of the red stone, red-roofed clubhouse of Muirfield, just another dose of the unexpected and one more slice of disappointment so coldly served over four days at the British Open.

Woods felt better about his experience after closing with a 65 under bright sunshine Sunday. He brought his score back to even par and tied for 28th. Par had become his goal after the worst round of his pro career the day before, when he played in a gale and shot 81.

His goal had been slightly more elevated before he got to Scotland. The Grand Slam was possible, with victories at the Masters and the U.S. Open already to his credit. Thirty years after Jack Nicklaus was in exactly the same position and failed, Woods would get the same chance.

Now, after enduring the same result as the man he has patterned his career after, Woods might have learned a hard truth from a humbling game. There’s a reason no one has won all four of golf’s professional majors in one year.

It can’t be done. The truth is, it’s just not possible. Nicklaus is the greatest player of all and he couldn’t do it. At 26, Woods is the greatest player of his generation and he’s not going to be able to do it either.

In 1972, Nicklaus was 32 and in his prime. After he lost to Lee Trevino by one shot here at Muirfield, he went on to the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills and watched Gary Player win. After being so motivated by trying to win the Grand Slam and then keenly disappointed by losing on Muirfield’s links, Nicklaus tied for 13th.

So there is some weighty history being tossed around here. Tiger’s chance for a Grand Slam, this one, came to an end one round sooner than Nicklaus’ in 1972, but the similarities are worth noting. And it’s going to be interesting to see how Woods responds in a month when he tees it up in the last major of the year at Hazeltine National Golf Club.

It might be easier for Woods to shake off his Muirfield result because of the freakish weather he endured Saturday. He admitted that he considered his 81 to be “just one of those days.” Tiger wasted no time in ridding himself of the memory. He shrugged it off. It wasn’t life and death, he said.

Such an attitude will help Woods, and so will his stance that he has already won the Grand Slam--just not in a calendar year. Woods held all four major titles at once, from the 2000 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship to the 2001 Masters.

No one else has done that, which is going to have to be enough to satisfy Woods. And everyone else, for that matter. Being able to raise your game to a peak at four different times of the year, from April to August, in all possible conditions, and outplaying the best players in the world for 16 rounds is just too tough an assignment for anyone.

Not everyone agrees, of course, and it’s a group that includes Arnold Palmer, Nicklaus and Nick Faldo, a six-time major champion, who informed everyone who would listen Sunday that the Grand Slam can be done and if anybody’s going to do it, it’s Woods.

Woods would disagree as well, but because he doesn’t go by a calendar in counting up majors he has won, there is no Grand Slam debate as far as he’s concerned. He has already done it, he says. And that may be something he can use to his advantage. By the looks of history, he’s going to need it.