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Tiger Woods goes into new era as same old charmless man

The former world No1 showed at the Masters that he is in danger of being swept away by golf's twentysomethings and that he has still not improved his relationship with the outside world



  • tiger-woods-007.jpg
    Tiger Woods is still having problems projecting a better image of himself to the public after recent scandals. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

    At the 15th hole, known as Firethorn, he stood over his putt. Four and a half feet to make an eagle three. Four and a half feet to go 11 under for the tournament. Four and a half feet to edge ahead of the squabbling pack. Four and a half feet to put his career back on track, and maybe to change his destiny.
    All his working life, up until November 2009, Tiger Woods had been making putts like that. Once it would have been practically a gimme. On Sunday, with everything at stake, after a magnificent comeback on the front nine, followed by a perfect drive and a laser-guided six-iron from 207 yards out to the 15th green, a pair of strokes that recalled the steel-nerved best of Woods's triumphs at Augusta National, the ball rolled gently around the lip on the right-hand edge of the hole, oblivious to the consequences of its errant path.
    Had it dropped, had he pulled clear of the Schwartzels and the Scotts, the Days and the Chois, you would not have found a soul on the course to bet against him closing out his fifth US Masters title. And his success would have seemed so inevitable that the story of the preceding three days would have been effortlessly rewritten into a narrative of unstoppable triumph.
    Woods's failure at the 15th opened the way for Charl Schwartzel, a gifted 26-year-old from Johannesburg who became the 10th different champion in the last 10 major championships, the clearest of signals that we are in a post-Woods era. The modest South African managed to honour all the 2011 tournament's significant anniversaries. He was a worthy winner of the 75th tournament. He shares his nationality with Gary Player, who became the first non-American winner at Augusta National 50 years ago. And he took the final steps to victory with four birdies on the final four holes, like Jack Nicklaus in his autumnal triumph 25 years ago. It was just the kind of finish that would once have been expected of the man in the red shirt, who instead found himself in a three-way tie for fourth place.
    So now Woods finds himself plunged back into the mire of speculation and scepticism. It is still getting on for three years since he last won a major, the 2008 US Open. This year's earnings on the PGA tour look likely to be closer to 2010's $1,294,765 – less than he would have earned from winning this year's Masters alone – than to 2009's prelapsarian $10,508,163. Not to mention the revenue from endorsements, which continues to dwindle at a rate experienced only by Wayne Rooney.
    Woods's demeanour through the 2011 Masters could best be described as charmless. From a man who vowed to use his humiliation as a spur to improving his relationship with the outside world, there was little beyond the most cursory of responses to encouragement from the gallery and questions from the media. This was particularly noticeable during a tournament in which we made the acquaintance not just of the impressive Schwartzel but of the equally likeable Jason Day of Australia and Alvaro Quirós of Spain.
    Above all, the events of Sunday will have reminded Woods that he is now 35 years old. Golf is less age-critical than most sports, but it was he who introduced a new set of athletic criteria to the game. Already the target of four major wins that stands between him and Nicklaus is looking more demanding with every passing year; if he does not hurry up, he may find himself swept away by an incoming tide.
    After all the discussion of his latest swing overhaul, the week suggested that the major technical elements of his game are back in place. For a man whose driving has been the chief casualty of the problems with his swing, he will have been justifiably pleased to have hit 12 of 14 fairways on Sunday. But he might be doing himself a favour if he stopped coming in after a round of 30 putts and insisting he had "putted beautifully all day", as he did after the first day of the Masters. What he needs is realism, not self-delusion.
    Animal rights and wrongs


    The trivial row over the BBC's coverage of the equine fatalities during the Grand National is being allowed to obscure the real issue. As Ornais and Dooney's Gate lay dead with a broken neck and a broken back respectively, Jason Maguire jumped off the winner, Ballabriggs, just past the winning post in order to allow the horse to be given oxygen and a cold-water spray. Tony McCoy, finishing third, was similarly swift to dismount in order to allow Don't Push It to receive urgent attention. Daryl Jacob pulled Sir Alex Ferguson's What a Friend out of the race with four jumps to go because the horse "felt very tired".
    There must be a reason for all this enervation, and it is not the Aintree course, which has been eased over the years. It is fair to assume, too, that the physical preparation of thoroughbreds has become more sophisticated. But several years ago the authors of Animal Aid's Riding for a Fall survey accused the equine world of a whole range of misdemeanours, including the harmful disruption of mares' breeding cycles and the dangerous overworking of stallions at stud.
    The allegation that caught my eye was a claim that owners were now going all out to breed more speed into National Hunt horses, at the expense of the traditional robustness. Saturday's unhappy events suggest that they may have been on to something.
    One team to rule the others


    Goodness knows how many millions of pounds have been expended on the current round of efforts to make Formula One more rewarding for spectators by introducing power-boost systems, moveable aerodynamic devices and tyres intended to degrade more rapidly. The only effect of these changes seems to have been the addition of further layers of complexity to a sport whose nuances are already beyond the comprehension of the average spectator. And in any case what we have – as we had with Ascari in 1952, Fangio in 1954 and 1955, Clark in 1963, Mansell in 1992 and Schumacher in 2002 and 2005 – is the sight of one combination of car and driver so superior to the rest that efforts to engineer artificial excitement into the sport are made to look hopelessly self-defeating.

 
Tiger Woods goes into new era as same old charmless man

The former world No1 showed at the Masters that he is in danger of being swept away by golf's twentysomethings and that he has still not improved his relationship with the outside world



  • tiger-woods-007.jpg
    Tiger Woods is still having problems projecting a better image of himself to the public after recent scandals. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

    At the 15th hole, known as Firethorn, he stood over his putt. Four and a half feet to make an eagle three. Four and a half feet to go 11 under for the tournament. Four and a half feet to edge ahead of the squabbling pack. Four and a half feet to put his career back on track, and maybe to change his destiny.
    All his working life, up until November 2009, Tiger Woods had been making putts like that. Once it would have been practically a gimme. On Sunday, with everything at stake, after a magnificent comeback on the front nine, followed by a perfect drive and a laser-guided six-iron from 207 yards out to the 15th green, a pair of strokes that recalled the steel-nerved best of Woods's triumphs at Augusta National, the ball rolled gently around the lip on the right-hand edge of the hole, oblivious to the consequences of its errant path.
    Had it dropped, had he pulled clear of the Schwartzels and the Scotts, the Days and the Chois, you would not have found a soul on the course to bet against him closing out his fifth US Masters title. And his success would have seemed so inevitable that the story of the preceding three days would have been effortlessly rewritten into a narrative of unstoppable triumph.
    Woods's failure at the 15th opened the way for Charl Schwartzel, a gifted 26-year-old from Johannesburg who became the 10th different champion in the last 10 major championships, the clearest of signals that we are in a post-Woods era. The modest South African managed to honour all the 2011 tournament's significant anniversaries. He was a worthy winner of the 75th tournament. He shares his nationality with Gary Player, who became the first non-American winner at Augusta National 50 years ago. And he took the final steps to victory with four birdies on the final four holes, like Jack Nicklaus in his autumnal triumph 25 years ago. It was just the kind of finish that would once have been expected of the man in the red shirt, who instead found himself in a three-way tie for fourth place.
    So now Woods finds himself plunged back into the mire of speculation and scepticism. It is still getting on for three years since he last won a major, the 2008 US Open. This year's earnings on the PGA tour look likely to be closer to 2010's $1,294,765 – less than he would have earned from winning this year's Masters alone – than to 2009's prelapsarian $10,508,163. Not to mention the revenue from endorsements, which continues to dwindle at a rate experienced only by Wayne Rooney.
    Woods's demeanour through the 2011 Masters could best be described as charmless. From a man who vowed to use his humiliation as a spur to improving his relationship with the outside world, there was little beyond the most cursory of responses to encouragement from the gallery and questions from the media. This was particularly noticeable during a tournament in which we made the acquaintance not just of the impressive Schwartzel but of the equally likeable Jason Day of Australia and Alvaro Quirós of Spain.
    Above all, the events of Sunday will have reminded Woods that he is now 35 years old. Golf is less age-critical than most sports, but it was he who introduced a new set of athletic criteria to the game. Already the target of four major wins that stands between him and Nicklaus is looking more demanding with every passing year; if he does not hurry up, he may find himself swept away by an incoming tide.
    After all the discussion of his latest swing overhaul, the week suggested that the major technical elements of his game are back in place. For a man whose driving has been the chief casualty of the problems with his swing, he will have been justifiably pleased to have hit 12 of 14 fairways on Sunday. But he might be doing himself a favour if he stopped coming in after a round of 30 putts and insisting he had "putted beautifully all day", as he did after the first day of the Masters. What he needs is realism, not self-delusion.
    Animal rights and wrongs


    The trivial row over the BBC's coverage of the equine fatalities during the Grand National is being allowed to obscure the real issue. As Ornais and Dooney's Gate lay dead with a broken neck and a broken back respectively, Jason Maguire jumped off the winner, Ballabriggs, just past the winning post in order to allow the horse to be given oxygen and a cold-water spray. Tony McCoy, finishing third, was similarly swift to dismount in order to allow Don't Push It to receive urgent attention. Daryl Jacob pulled Sir Alex Ferguson's What a Friend out of the race with four jumps to go because the horse "felt very tired".
    There must be a reason for all this enervation, and it is not the Aintree course, which has been eased over the years. It is fair to assume, too, that the physical preparation of thoroughbreds has become more sophisticated. But several years ago the authors of Animal Aid's Riding for a Fall survey accused the equine world of a whole range of misdemeanours, including the harmful disruption of mares' breeding cycles and the dangerous overworking of stallions at stud.
    The allegation that caught my eye was a claim that owners were now going all out to breed more speed into National Hunt horses, at the expense of the traditional robustness. Saturday's unhappy events suggest that they may have been on to something.
    One team to rule the others


    Goodness knows how many millions of pounds have been expended on the current round of efforts to make Formula One more rewarding for spectators by introducing power-boost systems, moveable aerodynamic devices and tyres intended to degrade more rapidly. The only effect of these changes seems to have been the addition of further layers of complexity to a sport whose nuances are already beyond the comprehension of the average spectator. And in any case what we have – as we had with Ascari in 1952, Fangio in 1954 and 1955, Clark in 1963, Mansell in 1992 and Schumacher in 2002 and 2005 – is the sight of one combination of car and driver so superior to the rest that efforts to engineer artificial excitement into the sport are made to look hopelessly self-defeating.

 
Rory McIlroy begins the long haul to recovery after Masters calamity

The Northern Irishman has proved he has the game to win a major. Now he must show he has the mental capability



  • Lawrence Donegan
  • The Guardian, Tuesday 12 April 2011 <li class="history">Article history
    rory-mcilroy-007.jpg
    Rory McIlroy's manager said the young golfer will reflect on the mistakes made during his final round at Augusta. Photograph: David J. Phillip/AP

    For Charl Schwartzel, there was the traditional round of media appearances that come with winning a Masters championship but when Monday dawned for Rory McIlroy there was only the prospect of a trip to the airport.
    Destination Kuala Lumpur, where the Northern Irishman will tee it up on Thursday in the Malaysian Open. It is a 10,000-mile journey from Augusta, 20 hours in the air &#8211; a long haul indeed but not long enough to forget Sunday's tumultuous events. That kind of healing will be a while coming, if it ever comes at all.
    McIlroy, who shot 80 and tied for 15th after beginning the final round of the Masters with a four-shot lead, is not the first golfer to choke when greatness called. But he is perhaps the first golfer to so defy expectations on such a grand scale. Such was the quality of the Northern Irishman's efforts over the first three days, and such was the ease with which he comported himself, there was scarcely a soul who didn't believe this would be his first major championship victory, the first of many.
    But the expected coronation turned into something more than a defeat; a humiliation, in fact. To watch McIlroy wander around the cabins 50 yards left of the 10th fairway in search of his ball, as happened on Sunday, was to wonder just what he will need to do to get over the experience.
    Not much, apparently, according to the player himself. "It will be pretty tough for me for the next few days but I will be fine. There are a lot worse things that can happen in your life. Shooting a bad score in the last round of a golf tournament is nothing in comparison to what other people go through," he said afterwards.
    He earns full marks for showing some perspective but there must be some doubt about his ability to forget. Golfers lose all the time &#8211; it is part of the job description &#8211; but they rarely fall apart in such a comprehensive fashion. McIlroy can say what he likes but when he next finds himself challenging for a major championship, as he undoubtedly will, he would be less than human were he not to think back to the 10th hole on Sunday, where he ran up a calamitous triple-bogey seven, or the 12th green, where he four-putted from less than 20 feet.
    Professional golfers are a prideful bunch &#8211; it is a necessary part of their make-up &#8211; and they fear embarrassment almost more than they fear losing. McIlroy has proved he has the game to win a major championship. What he needs to prove now is that he has the mental capability.
    On this the jury is out, with even his Ryder Cup colleague Lee Westwood pointedly suggesting all is not well with the Northern Irishman's psyche. "I have played with Rory a lot, and when he gets under a bit of pressure he does have a pull hook in his bag," the Englishman said.
    This was a bit rich coming from a golfer who has a proven inability to hole critical putts when it matters most, but it was also true. McIlroy's swing is wonderfully fluid and effective but it is not entirely reliable at crucial moments.
    One of his strengths as a golfer, and as a person, is his self-awareness. Suffice to say, he will devote much of his time over the coming days to the examination of his Masters experience. "What will happen is that I will go to Malaysia, we will sit down and work out where he thinks he went wrong and where I think he went wrong," said his manager, Andrew Chandler.
    They will receive plenty of unsolicited advice as they go about this task, most of which they will instantly dismiss. In an era when swing coaches like Butch Harmon have become household names, some will question why McIlroy's has stuck with the "unknown" Michael Bannon, who has guided him since he was boy &#8211; as if celebrity has any bearing on a man's ability to teach sound swing mechanics. Others will call for the removal of his caddie JP Fitzgerald, a fellow Irishman, who some believe is not assertive enough when it comes to advising his young charge.
    The caddie's increasingly vocal critics may well have a point, but they will almost certainly be ignored for the time being. McIlroy is a loyal person. It is one of his qualities, as is his willingness to take responsibility for his own failings. Unlike some of his peers, who are quick to glare at the bagman when something goes askance, the youngster simply shrugs and moves on.
    But if no personnel changes are made in team McIlroy, what else can we expect in the way of a response? Undoubtedly the first order of business is his putting. He should find himself a new blade or establish a new routine. It may even be a case of changing his practice habits &#8211; placing less emphasis on beating balls on the range and more on developing the art of chipping and putting.
    There is also the question of his schedule. Unlike Schwartzel, who will play around 30 events this year, McIlroy is more discerning when it comes to picking his tournaments. Chandler hinted this might have to change. "The problem with Rory is that he doesn't play a lot so he doesn't get that much practice at winning," he said. "That's the balance you need to strike &#8211; how many times you should play to develop the winning habit, while at the same time staying fresh and focused."
    McIlroy will also need to develop greater patience, and so for that matter will those who, after Sunday's events, have developed the impression he is now a "lost cause". For him, it is a case of slowing down in pressure situations, allowing himself to make more measured decisions than the ones that cost him a green jacket. Meanwhile, those on the outside looking in have to realise McIlroy is still a kid in golfing terms.
    "Charl has won nine times now and he has been a pro for 10 years. That's a lot more experience than Rory has, and a lot more winning experience," Chandler said when asked to compare and contrast Schwartzel and McIlroy, both of whom he manages. "What people seem to forget is that Rory is only 21. If he was American, he would still be in college and here we all are thinking he should have won the Masters. He is No8 in the world, and here we all are thinking he is an underachiever. It's daft."

 
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