|
Share this article:
Digg |
StumbleUpon |
del.icio.us |
Reddit
By Andrew Both PA SportsTicker Golf Writer
MIAMI (Ticker) -- As Tiger Woods takes his six-month winningstreak into Thursday's first round of the World GolfChampionships, his fellow professionals can only look on in aweat his accomplishments.
With six official victories - five in the United States and oneon the European Tour - Woods' peers are starting to wonder ifhe'll ever be beaten again.
They admire every facet of his game, but it's perhaps thesimplest part of golf that draws the most envy. At least,that's what one player claims.
"What people talk about in the locker room is how does he puttso well every week?" said Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Openchampion. "Lots of guys can work out how to hit it well everyweek.
"But week in and week out, he seems to make bombs all over theplace, which is not easy to do. That's the bit people can'twork out, how does he hole that many putts?"
Of course, there's much more to Woods' repertoire than putting.But he does have an uncanny ability to coax the ball into thebottom of the cup when it really matters.
Take last Sunday for instance, when he holed a 24-footer at thefinal hole to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational by one stroke.
Woods had not, contrary to Ogilvy's general observation, made aputt from outside 20 feet all week. But was anyone reallysurprised that he did so when he needed to?
Woods is making the phenomenal look merely routine. Forexample, he is one of just three players to have won at leastfive consecutive starts on the PGA Tour, and the only player tohave done it more than once.
He won seven starts in a row in 2006-07, won six times on thetrot in 1999-2000 and has now won five consecutive appearanceson tour. Jack Nicklaus, by contrast, never won more than threesuccessive starts.
In an average year, Woods posts as many victories as some very,very good players manage in their entire careers.
"He has a good career every year," Ogilvy said. "Last yearwould have been a good career for anybody, a major and sevenother tournaments. That's a career, and he does it every year.
"It doesn't surprise me anymore. When he won the U.S. Open by15 (strokes in 2000) and three weeks later won the British Openby eight, people were saying he can't get any better."
Woods has had two relatively quiet seasons, finishing fourth onthe money list in both 1998 and 2004. Both times, however, hewas in the midst of swing changes that ultimately would lead tototal dominance again.
"He has his ups and downs," Ogilvy said. "But his ups tend tolast longer than most people's and his downs don't last verylong, and are very good.
"In the middle of last year, I wasn't really in love with (hisswing), but by the Tour Championship (in September) it startedlooking really good."
Now Woods tries to extend his winning streak at a course hevirtually owns, Doral's Blue Monster. He has won here the pastthree years, twice at the now defunct PGA Tour stop, whileclaiming the WGC CA Championship last year.
The field has been set at 79 players, with reigning British Openchampion Padraig Harrington the only one among the world's top50 absent.
Woods will be as motivated as ever this week to continue hiswinning streak in his last start before the Masters. Someonewill end his latest golden run sooner or later, but don't bettoo much on such a scenario unfolding this week.
|
