This has got to be the most daunting task in all of sport. Ernie Els was just lost out there today.
I think it was the 11th hole.
Els is perfectly positioned in the fairway. He hits his approach within 6 feet of the pin. An ungodly awesome shot.
Tiger’s in the rough. He’s gotta hit his shot down the left side of the fairway and carry the edge of a trap.
He sticks it inside of three feet!
It’s amazing that Ernie didn’t just pack up the clubs and head home there.
A fifteen stroke win. The largest ever in all four of the majors. A 272 stroke total. Tied with Nichlaus for the lowest ever in a major – this with a truple-bogie on two yesterday!
All in all I’d say Nike’s getting their $100 million worth.
One last thing – Did ya notice that Tiger’s left sleeve was markedly shorter than his right? Is this to help his putting, irons, woods or driving?
ChiefScott: Is Tiger a righty? If so, shortening his left sleeve might help him to see the ball better on his downswing and upswing, making chance for error much smaller.
Just a thought, though. I don’t know much about golf.
Chief, I think that’s just how his shirt rides up from the motion of swinging (he’s got great shoulder rotation and a high finish). In any case, if you can do anything that fuckin’ well, you get to wear your shirtsleeves any length you want!
And this guy could be playing at this level for another thirty years! (And be competing for twenty years after that. Purely amazing.)
I agree…the guy is simply AMAZING. I was in fucking awe the entire afternoon. Guess all the comments about him not being able to win the Open are done now…
I thought his sleeves didn’t match either, but then I saw how he hikes one sleeve up. Later, both sleeves were down and they matched.
To call Tiger a phenomenon is short-changing him. He averages +300 on his drives, hits the highest percentage of fairways, and putts like his ball has eyes.
I’m so jealous of that little sumbitch it hurts.
Did you see the guys giving him the “we’re not worthy”? He got a chuckle out of that.
EEK ! My boss is out there in CA watchin’ all that now, and I was holdin’ the fort for her this weekend. Everything fell to shit, and I’m grinding my teeth for the trouble.
I’m gonna have to hear it all in lurid detail tomorry, and don’t know if I can stand it. Although that Tiger is one CUTE honeybun!
The biggest hurdle for Tiger has to be motivation. At some point kicking everyone’s ass has to get boring for him. The only saving grace might be that he can set a goal of shooting a 58 for himself.
It has to be individual goals at this point. He’s got every facet of the game it seems. His only downfall before may have been patience.(I cite the British Open and I reiterate the “may have been”) Now he takes a double bogey at the start of his round on Saturday and brushes it off.
I was well into a day of Birthday celebration at the point he teed off. Started at 1pm CST and the drinks were free.
However I think that makes my point even better. No offense to the Aussies but when he started his round we said even Greg Norman couldn’t blow this lead at Augusta.(Especially considering who Tiger’s closest competition was…Bjorn and Jimenez I think it was.)
This may have been covered, but Tiger definitely hitches his right shirtsleeve up with his left hand before he addresses the ball, intentionally. God knows why he does it.
He does wear his sleeves long, so perhaps it’s just to keep the sleeve end from catching ever so slightly on his elbow as he begins his backswing. When you swing as hard as he does, I would imagine the littlest error could send everything to hell. If I had his swing speed, I’d likely kill somebody.
I’d think the fact that to this date there are still courses where he’s not allowed to play, combined with having to hear remarks like “Oh so we’re gonna have watermelon and fried chicken at the awards dinner” from his rivals would be more than enough motivation to stomp their pasty white asses into the ground for the rest of his life.
But, the ignorance that prevents him from playing these courses and generates comments of the sort you mention(Which I believe is attributed to Fuzzy Zoeller) will go unaffected by his victories. Those forces will always have an excuse and will most likely become worse in the face of his continued domination. Which in turn provides continued motivation for Tiger. At some point he will tire of the abuse. I hope he doesn’t but it is likely he will.
This is part of the ignorance we are here to fight and it is a mission aided by Tiger’s triumphs. Education is the key. Racism is after all not a genetic trait but a learned one.
Tiger has been quoted this year that he hasn’t experienced a single instance which he perceived as racism (The Sporting News, two-three weeks ago).
In fact, what sticks in the craw of a lot of the men on the pro golf tour is how good he is at such a young age!
Ernie Els was speaking to the press after the final round of the U.S. Open when he said, “Come on, guys. I’ve run out of words to describe him (Tiger). He’s that good!”
Hell, I’ve been doing my job for 18 years. If someone came in at the age of 24 and did my job light-years better than I could ever do, I’d be a little jealous too.
BTW, I saw that his left sleeve was shorter than his right while he was walking up the 18th fairway. Not when he hikes it up prior to a shot.
I don’t know that that’s entirely true…how much money does a tournament like that make for a course? My husband was pointing out a course to me in Monterey and said “That’s where they used to have the [some tournement, I can’t keep them straight].” I asked why they didn’t have it anymore and he said “Oh it’s a white’s only course.” I was completely ignorant that something that asinine even still went on, and I almost made him pull the car over because I thought I’d throw up. I would think losing that much possible income and publicity would give even the most hardened bigot pause, and the fact that it doesn’t really gives me the creeps.
There are a few courses which still exclude blacks and other minorites.
USGA won’t play those courses because of their exclusive policies.
Augusta changed their rules for admission so they wouldn’t “lose” the Masters (The Masters could never be played anywhere else, IMHO).
Tiger, Singh and oldsters like Rodriguez and Lee had to have learned to play somewhere.
From the news yesterday: 1. Tiger brings $700M to golf 2. Tiger brings Nike about $170M per year [notice they have Nike gold balls?] 3. In 96 Nike signed him a $40M five year contract, said to be $90M in 2001.
Plus, someone paid $350,000 for a round of golf with him on some web site.
I find it hard to believe that any clubs out there (not courses) would turn Tiger away if he showed up with his bag on his back. Now, if he were some schmuck, sure…but then again, I’m more or less a schmuck (with a very pasty white ass), and I doubt I’ll ever be playing Cypress Point, for example.
And Tiger’s round wasn’t the lowest in a major, it was the lowest in the US Open in relation to par, and tied for lowest aggregate score (like that matters–I’d rather be 12 under at 272 than 8 under at 272…by the way, good thing the 2nd was a par 4, or he would likely have been 2 or 3 or 4 more under). Just off the top of my head, I believe Faldo was 14 under at the Old Course in 1990, and Tiger was at 18 under (270) when he won the Masters.
Obviously the best in the world by far when he’s on, but let’s wait and see if he can keep it up for another ten years or more before he’s the best golfer of all time–or until he wins 15 more professional majors, which could only be five years or so…
