The Week: Tiger's Falling Star Power

Woods's pre-Open lull continued with a quiet week in Germany

By Alan Shipnuck

Woods's putting woes left him in 29th place, nine back of the winner, Harrington. Stuart Franklin/Getty Images GOLF PLUS EXTRA Big Play: T.J. Tomasi Teeing Off: Remembering Mark McCormack TRUST ME Look no further than the recent hot-button issues to understand golf's image problems. Casey, Martha and Annika are about inclusion, and much of America has been told it's not welcome. NEXT UP PGA Tour: Bank of America Colonial Champions Tour: Columbus Southern Open LPGA Tour: LPGA Corning Classic PGA European Tour: Volvo PGA Championship INSTANT POLL Which 2003 major was the best? The Masters The U.S. Open The British Open The PGA View Results

Tournament organizers at last week's Deutsche Bank-SAP Open offered Tiger Woods the use of an orange Lamborghini Murcielago, but he opted instead for a Volkswagen sedan. "It's a bit too flashy for me," Woods said of the Lamborghini. Unfortunately, Woods also blended into the crowd with his play, finishing a ho-hum 29th, nine strokes out of a Padraig Harrington-Thomas Björn playoff, which was won on the first extra hole by the man Woods calls Paddy.

Woods was attempting to become the first player in European tour history with a three-year win streak at different events -- he had taken the WGC-NEC Invitational from 1999 to 2001 -- but last week he was betrayed by a balky putter or, to hear him tell it, by the fungus-ravaged greens at Gut Kaden golf course in Alveslohe, Germany.

This was Woods's first tournament since the Masters, four weeks earlier, and his second consecutive missed opportunity to make history. At Augusta he was trying to become the first player to win three straight Masters. Woods's final-round blowup there marked his third straight major without a victory. His autobahn ride to golf immortality has created impossibly high expectations; it must be noted that if Woods doesn't defend his championship at next month's U.S. Open, it will mark the first time he has gone four consecutive majors without a victory since 1998-99, when he was putting the finishing touches on his swing changes.

Making matters more interesting is that Woods will play only once more before the Open, at next week's Memorial. "Usually I get three tournaments in before the U.S. Open, this time it's two," he said last week when pressed about his scheduling. "It's not that big a difference."

No, but his long break and middling return in Europe has coincided with the media frenzy surrounding Annika Sorenstam. Coming hard on the heels of Martha Burk's skirmish with Augusta National, it seems like ages since Woods has been the biggest story in the game. Maybe that's by design. Woods builds his schedule to ensure that he will have plenty of energy for the summer, when there are three majors in the span of 10 weeks. His December knee surgery has given him another reason to slack off. "The doctors said it's in my best interests long-term to take it slow for now," Woods said in Germany. "Then I can play as many events as I want over the next few years."

But Woods is such a high-octane presence that even a couple of winless months from him seems to drain much of the game's horsepower. His little respites also embolden the competition. "There's a lot of players out there who can give Tiger something to worry about," said Harrington, who now tops the European tour's money list.

No doubt Woods will file that away and blow Paddy's doors off the next time they meet, but last week Woods was stuck in neutral. He made only three bogeys in four rounds but could never find a cure for fusarium, the fungus that attacked Gut Kaden's putting surfaces, necessitating a local rule allowing players relief from dead patches on the greens. The politic Woods would allow only that, "It's frustrating because I'm hitting good putts, but there is nothing you can do about it."

Woods's struggle may also have had something to do with his rolling a new rock. He put into play last week a prototype Nike ball that sounds as if it will be perfect for the British Open. "More than anything else, it's a lot better in the wind," Woods said.

In this era of exotic gear, Woods has always demonstrated that he's not obsessed with power, which also helps explain his taste in automobiles.

O.B.: Gossett Gets a Paddling by Fax

•Brad Faxon has long been the PGA Tour's unofficial putting guru, but at the Nelson last week he added a new role -- Ping-Pong consultant. David Gossett, who recently bought a table for his new digs in Orlando, asked Faxon to give him some pointers on a Ping-Pong battlefield that was set up next to the players' lounge. "Fax is the best there is," says Gossett. "Tiger's pretty good too, but Fax is tough."

•Hank Kuehne may be one of the Tour's breakout performers this year, but on May 11 he got a lesson from his older brother and occasional caddie, Trip, as did Jerry Kelly. In a match at the TPC Four Seasons course, in Irving, Texas, Trip threw a front-nine 30 at the boys en route to sweeping all the bets. "When I play with Tour guys, it's like my U.S. Open," says Trip, who lost the 1994 U.S. Amateur final to Tiger Woods and is now a Dallas-based venture capitalist. "I only wish there had been more money on the match."

•Goofing around with his four-year-old daughter, Whitney, last Thursday morning, Jay Williamson was poked in the left eye hard enough to have it swell shut. Thirty minutes before his tee time Williamson was still being treated by an eye doctor. "He put enough drops in my eye that it finally started to open up," Williamson said. He was able to see his way to an opening 70 and a 75th-place finish.

•The European Ryder Cup committee has voted to amend its qualifying criteria -- finally. For the 2004 Cup at Oakland Hills, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the top five players in the World Ranking will automatically qualify, as will five others from atop the Order of Merit (instead of the traditional 10). Europe's mystery captain -- to be named in July -- will make the final two selections.

Issue date: May 26, 2003