Golf: Tiger taming a rough sight

Sometimes the genius of the Tiger has failed. Seven years ago, some way east of here in Muirfield, it was blown away but there was a storm of biblical proportions going on when he shot 81 on the third day of that Open.

Never before, though, have we seen it collapse piece by piece, level by level, and to such an extent that watching it happen became nothing so much as a cruel act of voyeurism.

It was hard not to tremble for the man who is generally agreed to be the greatest golfer who ever lived when he was trailling out of the 138th Open last night because this was more than defeat. This was an assault on what most have abundant reason to believe is the most secure psyche in any branch of professional sport.

Of course the Tiger can lose - golf is so sensitive to form and conditions, and is played by individuals easily identifiable as human beings. But he was, we had come to believe, in a category of his own. If he lost, it was not a catastrophe but a spur to greater deeds, or a bad day - as he had on the first day with a one-over par 71 that left him seven shots off the pace.

But what were seven shots to Tiger Woods at the end of the first day of a major tournament, the ultimate level of golf at which he has succeeded 14 times, just four less than the great Jack Nicklaus who won his last title at the age of 46?

When he won the US Masters for a sixth time, Nicklaus was 13 years older than the Tiger last night as he tried to brace himself against only his third missed cut at this level of the game he has dominated since he won his first Masters green jacket 12 years ago.

Thirteen years seemed at least the time Tiger had to gather the greatest collection of trophies in the history of the game and, still, when we reminded ourselves of the astonishing talent which suddenly went missing yesterday, that still seemed the most feasible of possibilities.

But first there has to be an absorption of the shock that overtook the great golfer and the rest of the game when he drove, yet again to the right, at the 10th tee last night. He was already tumbling into a rare crisis with bogeys at the eighth and ninth holes. Those carried him to two-over par and perilously close to the projected cut-line of four-over but then it was impossible to imagine he would be so engulfed when his ball was lost in a trampling crowd and he was forced to play a provisional into the 10th green and a crushing double bogey.

The bewilderment re-doubled at the 12th when he bogeyed after finding a bunker from the tee and then there was another disaster at the 14th when he double-bogeyed again.

It was at this point a rare expression crossed the face of Tiger. It wasn't anger, it wasn't concern, it wasn't even apprehension. It was disbelief. It was the sense his world, all the certainties upon which he has built his fabulous reputation, were sliding away before his eyes.

Yes, twice before he had missed a cut in a major but the first time it happened, he was a 20-year-old amateur contending in the Masters and the second, three years ago in the US Open, he was still emotionally bruised by the death of his beloved father Earl.

Last night, the threat to his presence in a tournament he has won three times was created by a rather more tangible problem. It came from his inability to make the kind of running adjustments to his game that so often have retrieved a challenge for one of the great titles - and at the very least preserved his presence - and the possibility of one of his extraordinary charges to the finishing line.

He rallied with birdies at the 16th and 17th holes but a long iron on the 18th tee slipped to the right and into the gorse and Woods had only one choice - go for the flag. The approach was pin-high but he could not halt its momentum, leaving a chip from the back of the green. His touch was assured rather than assertive. It was not enough.

It asked how was it that Tom Watson at 59 could do so much to recreate the glory of his 1977 victory here over Nicklaus in conditions which so reduced Tiger, the man about whom Watson had said just 48 hours, "there is no question in my mind that he is the greatest player golf has seen - and Jack Nicklaus has admitted it too"?

Tiger's fall was not easy to believe, nor will it be for quite some time - perhaps as long as it takes him to reassure the world that the greatest of his talent has not begun to seep away.

- INDEPENDENT