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Lift, clean and place this
OAKVILLE, ONT. -- It has not yet become like Butch and Sundance yet for Tiger Woods . He knows full well who those guys are back there, chasing him constantly, the Dunlaps and Mays, the Ames and Waites. But it must be a constant "Me against The World" and how difficult must that be? Suddenly they seem to be saying, "Somebody has to take a serious run at this guy and it might as well be me." Oddly enough -- or perhaps not so oddly, when you analyze it -- it's not the big names who are taking those runs, but the second wave. Guys who either need to earn a dollar or a card or a reputation and any one of those, at this time of the season, can be lethal. And in the midst of all of this, one of the strangest acts of golfing humanity on Sunday gave that group an even bigger boost. The Royal Canadian Golf Association, which is the USGA's counterpart and runs the Canadian Open, decided that a huge monster storm was going to attack Glen Abbey sometime late in Sunday's final round and so, even though the sun was warm and the skies clear for much of the day, they instituted a "lift, clean and place" rule from the first grouping. Because they couldn't bring that rule into effect mid-round, this would not force the final groups playing through that storm to have to worry about mud on their golf balls. Go figure. Such a rule, once called "lift, clean and cheat" by a USGA official, is a license to steal. No bad lies in the fairway, no problem spinning the ball. Give these guys that kind of help on a near-perfect day is silly. Of course, that also helps Tiger but it brings the field closer to level. Back to the original point. Where are the Leonards and Loves, the Duvals and Montgomeries and Westwoods who were supposed to chase Tiger? Oh, they're there, somewhere, middling around, but it appears the serious challenge won't be coming from the first wave any time soon. Even "lift, clean and place" didn't help them this time around. Jim Huber is an Emmy award-winning journalist for CNN/Sports Illustrated and a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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