Golf: Champ returns to top of game

Tiger Woods holds the Claret Jug at St Andrews yesterday. Picture / Reuters

So many hopes, so many dreams, so much emotion, but just one glaring reality - Tiger Woods. He won the British Open by five shots at St Andrews yesterday, and he didn't even play that well.

That was the spookily familiar truth that the world of golf will have to come to terms with once more.

Although the courageous second-placed Colin Montgomerie had so much to stand tall about, the Scot's ego was one of the few that has not taken an absolute kicking in the past four days.

Woods, the phenomenon, is back, make no mistake about it. His 10th major and his second Claret Jug screamed it yesterday as his 14-under total swatted off the gutsy challenge of Montgomerie.

He barely had to lift his hand to see off Jose Maria Olazabal and Fred Couples, a further shot back in third.

Only Walter Hagen's haul of 11 majors separates Woods from Jack Nicklaus on 18 in the table of leading major winners. Alas, their season is finished - Tiger has at least 10 years in hand.

"He knows, and everybody else knows, that he's on his way to Jack's record," Montgomerie said.

He sounded reverential as he said it, but then he might well have because Woods has now finished first, second and first in the three majors so far this year. Not bad for someone who was being written off.

"I couldn't really tell you what I would want to about all those who did say that," Woods said after a final-round 70.

"But that's why I made those swing changes with Hank [Haney, his coach] - just to get back to this level."

In fact, this could be a whole new level of Woods' dominance, as some of his play yesterday was simply mesmerising, not just in its peerless application but also in its strength of will. If his putter had been hot here, then he would have won by a dozen.

In the spirit of competition, a cacophonous St Andrews was mighty glad he did not because never has a foregone conclusion been so exciting. The final scores may hint at a walkover, but before the decisive stretch this was anything but.

Woods has always said that the majors do not begin until the back nine of the last round, but in truth this was where he finished it. Until then, this links had been a powder keg and Montgomerie was its fuse.

The cheers were never louder, or as hysterically expectant, than when the 42-year-old birdied the fifth to close to within one of Woods as the action started with a frenzy.

Olazabal had done likewise after birdieing the fourth, but for some reason Monty focused the support, crystallised the excitement, and made everybody believe that yes, this was indeed possible.

Everybody but Woods, that is.

He played that crucial fifth with utter contempt - his usual two-putt birdie after finding the par-five, 519m green in two - and the gap was back to two.

"I figured that I was playing the same holes as Ollie and Monty, and that if I birdie the same holes, then it's no worries, no blood," Woods said later.

And as he cranked up the might of his unique talent to stand over a metre-long putt to increase the deficit to three again on the seventh, and then again with a 1.5m putt on the eighth, it was as if he had taken a sharpened graphite shaft to the bubble.

Except Woods missed them both and, for another hour at least, the game still seemed on, the Monty fairytale still in the telling.

In fact, this unlikeliest of bedtime stories started to bear all the facets of reality when Woods took on the 10th green - some 357m away but driven by the Californian on Saturday - and could only find the underlip of a bunker.

He splashed out, knocked it in to 3.5m, but with his errant putter twitching, Woods accepted the bogey with a shrug and the lead was down to one once more.

"This is Monty's chance," the links whispered, but as so often happens to the Scot in the majors, a mini-disaster magnified the futilities of all his labours.

A three-putt from the back of the green of the par-three 11th took him two back, and when he failed to locate the birdie that the wide expanses of the 12th demands and when Tiger most definitely did, the breach was now back to three. Game over. Memo to Claret Jug engraver: "T-I-G-E-R W-O-O-D-S".

Three soon became four when Montgomerie missed a metre putt for par on the 13th, and then became five when Woods brushed off the 14th with his customary nonchalance. Two woods, a chip, a putt - birdie. Simple.

If it was a boxing bout, you would have stopped it. If it was a knitting bout, you would have stopped it. Montgomerie was a busted flush and could only hang on to his fourth second-place in the majors.

Olazabal had been washed down the sink long ago. Bogeys at the 11th, 13th and 15th finished the 39-year-old, and only a birdie at the last gave him the share of third.

That was with Couples, whose remarkable 68 was just one of many cameos here yesterday. The 45-year-old has been so crippled by his arthritic back that it was a wonder he could hobble up this final fairway, never mind birdie it.

But in truth, there was only Tiger. He became the first Open champion in 32 years to hold the outright lead in all four rounds and only the second player to win all four majors at least twice.

Tiger's 2005

* Appears close to his best form with victories at the Buick Invitational and Doral Open, and a tie for third in his first five PGA Tour starts.

* Clinches his ninth major victory by edging out Chris DiMarco at the first extra hole of a playoff for the US Masters at Augusta.

* Finishes second behind Michael Campbell at the US Open at Pinehurst.

* Wins his 10th major by five shots in the British Open at St Andrews.

* Moves ahead of fellow American Ben Hogan and South Africa's Gary Player in the all-time major standings to lie behind only Jack Nicklaus (18) and Walter Hagen (11).

- INDEPENDENT