Woods Needs to Make Accurate Statement

All you need to know about Tiger Woods, according to Gary McCord of CBS, is how often he showed up on last week’s network telecast of the Byron Nelson Championship. McCord said that about the only time Tiger appeared on camera was when he reached the green.

That’s what happens when you spend too much time in the rocks and under the trees and behind bushes, which is the type of topography Tiger has been tromping around lately.

He missed 11 of 14 fairways Sunday at the Nelson, but still shot a 69 and was only one shot out of the playoff that Sergio Garcia wound up winning. And the week before, on the last day of the Wachovia, Woods couldn’t have found a fairway with a compass, and he still shot a 68 and managed to miss by one shot a playoff that Joey Sindelar eventually won.

Naturally, there are a couple of ways to look at what’s going on with Tiger.

If he doesn’t improve his accuracy by the time he plays the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, he might get lost in the rough and someone will have to file a missing-person report.

If he straightens himself out, everyone else is toast.

And so we have arrived at a critical juncture of the season for Woods, who has won once in nine tournaments, has six top 10s, is fourth in scoring and third on the money list and is failing to wow anybody.

Tiger’s pro career contains numerous instances of attempts to fire up controversies. Tiger wins too many majors. Tiger doesn’t win enough majors. Tiger rebuilds his swing. Tiger needs to rebuild his swing. Tiger drops coach. Tiger needs to re-hire coach.

Although these clashes have news merit, it seems clear the biggest and longest-running controversy has all but fallen by the wayside, where it rests, there under a tree and behind a shrub right beside the ball Tiger just sent directly to that spot.

Who is Tiger’s rival?

The answer now is everybody.

It’s the easiest game to play. Look at Garcia, who hadn’t won a tournament in more than two years, then came through at the Nelson and was immediately hailed as vaulting himself back among the world’s elite. This stuff is whiplash-inducing.

Garcia, of course, was 19 and knighted as the Next Big Thing in 1999 at Medinah, where he nearly chased down Woods at the PGA Championship, but wound up losing to Tiger by a shot.

Perception is a strange concept. Garcia has won four times in the five years since and he’s soaring. Woods has won 29 times since and he’s battling to pull himself out of a slump.

The list of rivals for Woods could fill a cart barn, so there’s no sense in listing them all, but the short list has included, at one time or another, Garcia, David Duval, Phil Mickelson, Darren Clarke, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and now Mickelson and Garcia again.

The fact is that there is no longer a single, clear-cut rival for Woods, and with the U.S. Open fast approaching, the old game is simply not the same.

It’s Tiger against the field. Parity prevails. Call Paul Tagliabue and alert him to the situation. He’ll probably slap a logo on it and see whether he can get anybody to say “kickoff” instead of “tee shot.”

At Shinnecock, where the USGA is certain to make the fairways slimmer than a flagstick on the Atkins Diet, Woods will be reminded once again that he hasn’t won a major out of the last seven. The last six of those major winners, to remind you, were all first-timers, and the last time that happened was never.

Here’s who has defeated Tiger in the last seven majors: Els, Rich Beem, Mike Weir, Jim Furyk, Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel, Mickelson.

By now, the trend should be clear to all. It’s not Tiger against somebody, it’s Tiger against everybody. We’ll have to call in the experts to see whether that’s a good thing.

The way McCord sees it, once Woods starts landing on the fairway, where he can spin the ball onto the green and thus closer to the hole, Tiger will find that more to his liking than having to hit a 40-yard slice from behind a tree. Then, it’s really going to get interesting again, because the rival business will be back in full swing.