Singh deserves No. 1 consideration
Posted: Monday March 15, 1999 05:40 PM
The most interesting news from last week's Honda Classic wasn't, as the
pre-tournament talk suggested, that it had a better field than the usually far
more glamorous Doral-Ryder Open, held the week before. The two fields were
pretty much the same, especially to casual fans, who divide tournaments these
days into two categories -- those that have Tiger Woods and David
Duval, and those that
don't.
No, the most significant moment of the Honda Classic, which turned into one of
the year's more enjoyable events when the wind started gusting on the weekend,
came after Vijay Singh grabbed another victory. This one was handed to
him by rookie Eric Booker, who played the last three windswept holes in
four over par. Singh navigated the last five, which turned and went mostly into
the teeth of the day's gales, in one under par. Nobody in the field played them
better than that. In the winner's press conference, Singh said, "I feel I'm
swinging better than I've ever done, better than last
year."
That was the significant news. It may even be a little bit scary. This guy
played great last year and now he says he's swinging better? Maybe it's time to
take notice just how good Singh is. He was ranked eighth in the world before
Honda, further proof that the rankings, in their current form, are leakier than
the Titanic. Let's save the reformulating-the-rankings rant for another day and
focus on this: based on his play, Singh should be mentioned in the same sentence
with Woods, Duval and Mark
O'Meara.
Let's look back at 1998. Singh's performance was nearly every bit as good as
Duval's and O'Meara's. Singh won twice and finished second three times. One of
those seconds was a playoff loss to Hal Sutton in the season-ending Tour
Championship, which, I concede, is not much of a tournament with its tiny 30-man
field made up of a lot of weary players, many of whom don't bust their butts to
prepare for the week. But if Singh had won that playoff, it would've been his
third Tour win -- one more than O'Meara and one fewer than Duval -- and he
would've finished No. 1 on the money list. He won a major, which neither Duval
nor Woods did, and his consistency has been amazing. He made the cut in 53
straight tournaments before missing at last year's Masters. In his first seven
years on the PGA Tour, he has missed only 15 cuts in 132 tournaments.
That is Tiger-like. Actually, it's
better.
The only hole in Singh's game has been his putting, and since switching to a
crosshanded grip last year he has been considerably more effective. There is no
telling how many more events he would've won if he'd been able to rake in a few
putts from five feet, but suffice it to say it would've been a lot more. He had
29 top-10 finishes from 1995-'98 and a couple of putts in some of those would've
made a
difference.
Singh has five wins in less than two years, including last year's PGA
Championship. Forget about the rankings. On an ability level, we should start
thinking about Singh as a potential No. 1 player in the world. Why haven't we
until now? The truth is, it's because he always comes in DL -- that's short for
dead last -- in the old charisma derby. His low profile and serious
underappreciation is due in large part to his relationship with the media. He
doesn't have much of one because, basically, he doesn't want to be bothered.
Golf is his passion, his consuming obsession. Anything that doesn't help him get
better as a golfer just doesn't interest him much. When I did a story on him a
few years ago, he said there were golf clubs scattered throughout his house in
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., so he could grab one and fool with his grip, take
practice swings, whatever. He admitted there was even one in the
bathroom.
Singh, like a lot of international players, doesn't quite get how the American
media work. I think he believes we should just write about his golf -- you know,
"he hit a six-iron to 12 feet and made the putt, blah-blah-blah ..."
Those days are gone, along with UPI and the teletype. Stories these days need to
be personalized. People like to read about people. Singh doesn't like to talk
about Singh. In a one-on-one interview (which I've managed to arrange with him
only once), he is a very nice man, upbeat, who even has a little sense of humor.
He was actually delightful (sorry, that's the only word I can come up with).
Singh has made a convincing case for including his name among golf's elites. AP |
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Nice? After Booker finished his round at Honda, Singh went out of his way to
find him, shake his hand and offer congratulations/condolences. In fact, Singh
had done the same thing last year at the Buick Open where Booker, a former
assistant pro at Warwick Hills who was given a sponsor's exemption, finished a
surprising fourth. That was a really nice gesture that meant a lot to Booker,
then a struggling Nike Tour player. "You sit there and say, 'Wow, Vijay
Singh knows me?' It was kind of neat," Booker
said.
No doubt it's because Singh knows what it's like to work your way to the top.
That's what he did, starting at a nine-hole course in Fiji. Oh, that's another
topic Singh doesn't like to connect with, his home country. The most unique part
of his story, the amazing odds of someone from Fiji developing into a
world-class golfer, is exactly what makes him clam up. He worked as a pro at a
club in a Borneo rain forest, the symbolic equivalent of Siberia, following
charges that he once cheated by using a little pencil magic on a scorecard. It's
an old story that has never been fully proven nor, unfortunately, fully
disproven. It was either a gigantic mistake on his part or he was completely
victimized, slandered and unfairly punished. Either way, it's an old, old memory
that smarts, and Singh doesn't appreciate this skeleton being dug up. Mention of
it usually is followed by one of his no-interview bans.
Going into next week's Players Championship and next month's Masters, Singh
isn't likely to be mentioned with the other favorites. Look for Woods, Duval,
Ernie Els and O'Meara to draw most of the attention and debate about
who's really the best player in the world. Singh just might be the man, however.
He tied for eighth at the Players Championship in 1996 but otherwise has an
undistinguished record there, which is strange. His Masters record is worse. He
has missed the cut twice in five tries and never finished better than 17th. The
reason is obvious: Augusta National's strength, its incredibly fast and
incredibly sloped greens, plays right into the one weakness in Singh's game. It
frustrates him and he loses patience. A classic example was the final round of
the 1996 Masters, when he shot a startling 82 on a nice
day.
Later that year, he told me, "At the U.S. Open, if you hit a good shot at
the flag, you know the ball's going to stay on the green. It's different at
Augusta. You need a lot of luck. At majors, good players surface because of
patience, which I don't have at times. They hang in there, no matter how bad
they're playing, and don't throw shots away unnecessarily. Do your best, don't
give up. I did in Augusta after the fifth hole. I hit a perfect shot at the flag
and the ball goes like 200 yards over the green. Okay, it goes 20 yards over. I
think, That's the best golf shot I can ever hit and now I'm facing double-bogey.
I said, Forget it, you
know?"
At Honda, Singh said he was looking forward to the upcoming majors and that he
was going to go to Augusta with a different approach. "I never have a good
attitude at Augusta," he said. "I'm going to go in there with a fresh
attitude. I'm going to try loving it when I play
there."
I don't know if that will help him make any more putts on those greens. It
couldn't hurt. Just be prepared for him to be there for the final nine holes of
any of the other majors. Or any other event he enters, for that matter. To tweak
the PGA Tour's current slogan, This guy is good.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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