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Temperamental Tiger Woods' emotions held to different standards
Posted: Thursday March 25, 1999 12:03 PM
"Golf is usually played with the outward appearance of great dignity. It is, nevertheless, a game of considerable passion -- either the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul." -- Bobby Jones PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Tiger Woods is the explosive type. Watch an important putt slide by the hole, and it won't be long before he slams his putter into the side of the bag. Read his lips after an approach strays off line. See the scowl when he walks from green to tee. In the Match Play Championship, Woods swung from the heels on the 17th tee, needing a long, straight drive to keep alive any hope of winning his quarterfinals match against Jeff Maggert. When the ball hooked into the rough, he tomahawked his driver into the turf. This is the kind of behavior that Arnold Palmer wants to stop. "I think that frown all the time, and that slamming the club down doesn't do anything for his game and the game," Palmer said on the eve of his Bay Hill Invitational. "He's got the world in his hands. All he has to do is enjoy it and laugh, and enjoy the ability that he has to fullest extent. He's not convincing anybody of anything when he slams a club down. They know he's good. He's proven that." What Palmer proved with his sharp criticism is that Woods operates under different standards than anyone else on the PGA Tour. Mark Calcavecchia threw his putter into the pond in the Honda Classic and hardly anyone noticed. Scott Hoch broke his 3-wood in the Tour Championship and no one cared. Craig Stadler flings his club at any tournament and everyone laughs. Last week in the Bay Hill Invitational, just two days after Palmer's remarks about Woods' behavior, Davis Love III caught a plugged lie in the 17th bunker. After blasting out 45 feet past the hole, Love climbed out of the bunker and smacked a sprinkler head with his sand wedge, shattering the valve and causing water to gush out of control. The next day, Love found a note in his locker from Palmer, the tournament host and course owner. It was a mock bill -- $3.50 for parts, $175,000 for labor. "It would have been a little different story if I would have done it," Woods said. No one draws the size of galleries as Woods. No one gets as much television time. No one gets the amount of attention when they win or the same scrutiny when they don't. Woods was reminded of that when he sacked Fluff Cowan last month. Two-time U.S. Open champion Ernie Els fired longtime caddie Ricci Roberts and it barely got a paragraph. Woods fired Cowan and went through two weeks of Caddygate. "What I do is news," he said. Of course, it works both ways. So Woods might have caught more grief had he broken the sprinkler head. How many more headlines would he have captured had he, and not David Duval, shot a 59 on Sunday to win a tournament? "That's part of transcending the game, of being an icon," Duval said. "He's always going to be under a lot more scrutiny, just like Michael Jordan was. At the same time, he's compensated for it." Palmer says he talked to Woods about his responsibility when Woods turned pro at age 20. "He didn't have his hearing aid on," Palmer said. A year ago at the PGA Tour awards ceremony, Palmer put his hand on Woods' shoulder and issued another warning about the trappings of success, the responsibility of being in the spotlight. Maybe that's why Palmer shook his finger at Woods and turned his head when it came to Love. "It's like Jack [Nicklaus] was considered, when he first started, as a whiner and a crybaby because he was beating the crap out of everybody. So, anything he did, they picked on," Love said. "The guy at the top ... Tiger is going to get criticized for things he does more than somebody else. From that respect, I understand where he's coming from." Woods understands it, too. He says his tantrums have decreased, if only because he has become increasingly aware of a microphone not far from his every move on the course, cameras that still stay on him until they get a reaction. "It's interesting how people say golf needs more emotion," Woods said. "Then we start expressing emotion on the golf course and we're crucified for doing it, because it's not the right kind of emotion. You can't have the good without the bad." With Woods, there is always a lot of both.
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