ST. LOUIS — You’re tempted to say he’s the hardest-working man in show business, except Tiger Woods isn’t in show business. That’s the root of his greatness and his greatest challenge. As a public being, he’d like to be judged, first and foremost, as he judges himself, as an athlete. But the world won’t stand for that. The modern elite athlete must also be an entertainer, a showman, a celebrity, a philanthropist. A role model. It’s too much.

On Sunday, we saw the version of the man that truly captures and inspires: Tiger Woods, athlete. “He shot 64 when he looked like he was shooting 74,” said his playing partner, Gary Woodland. “Only a great athlete can do that. He missed that five-footer for birdie on 1, got mad, stiffed it on 2 and made that.”

Woodland’s caddie, Brennan Little, was caddying for Mike Weir on Sunday at Medinah in 1999 when Weir was paired with Woods and Woods won his first PGA Championship. “That was intense,” Little said Sunday night. “This was more intense.”

That was then, Tiger Woods at the start of his professional career. This is now, Tiger Woods deep in the back nine of it. Then there would be more chances forever, until forever disappears.

These were his four scores: 70, 66, 66, 64. Only one player shot better, Brooks Koepka, who won by two over Woods and three over Adam Scott. Koepka is 28 and his body never aches. “If you’re working out every day, you’re not going to be sore,” he said Saturday night, 24 hours before the coronation ceremony as the (unofficial) best player in the world, the (unofficial) player of the year, the (unofficial) future first ballot Hall of Famer. Tiger Woods is 42 and his body always aches. He’s probably taking an ice bath right now. The things we do, to pursue the things we want. Woods wants a 15th major, his kids at the awards ceremony, a new last chapter. He may not realize—he may be too close to the action to know—that he is already at work on an exceptional third act. Act I of his playing career was called Talent + Work. Act II was called Obsession + Work. Act III, a work in progress, is called Trying. Who cannot relate to trying? It’s what we tell our kids and our better selves, right?

It seems fitting, that this piece of sporting near-magic happened where it did, in this great and proud city, or in its leafy, moist suburbs, anyhow. You know St. Louis: the Cardinals, the breweries, the Blues, the dwindling factories trying to hold on, the late, great Sporting News (print edition), union workers clinging to their cards, the reinvention as a tech-and-med town. You never saw bigger crowds following Woods, anywhere. St. Louis fans have a measure of patience you won’t see in New York or Chicago and Los Angeles. That’s why they love baseball so much. That’s why they were the sixth man in this fourth major. “It felt a little bit like a football atmosphere out there,” Woods’s caddie, Joe LaCava, said Sunday night. He’s a Giants fan himself. Woods’s team is the Raiders.

Eric McHugh, a St. Louis TV cameraman, worked the tournament on Sunday wearing a black Mizzou basketball hat. He’s covered everything there is to cover in St. Louis, and way beyond St. Louis. “I’ve covered games in the Coliseum, with 85,000 people there, hollering,” he said, referring to the Los Angeles football temple. “This was more than that.” Not in terms of numbers. No golf course, and Bellerive especially, can handle a crowd that size. If it was half of that, it would be huge. (The PGA of America did not release attendance figures.) McHugh was speaking as Woodland was, of intensity. “The crowd noise for Tiger was like a storm brewing. You’d be standing on the side of the fairway and he’d be walking up it and it was like a sound wave, building up, getting louder and louder.” There has never been another golfer who has created an atmosphere like that, who shakes life into the people who watch him, on a screen and especially in person. That’s because there’s never been a golfer with a life story anything like Tiger Woods’s life story. It’s easier to root for him now than ever before, because we can all see what he is: a man in recovery.

Woods did at Bellerive what he did last month at Carnoustie. Both times, he was nearly excellent. Both times he stirred memories of his former greatness. Both times, he showed his desire, intensity and anger, and his sense of humor, too. He showed—he proved—the very thing he has said for some years now: “Father Time is undefeated.” In the intense heat and humidity of the Show Me state in August, Woods needed two shirts a day. Greatness sweats. If you’ve ever seen Michael Jordan in action, or Bill Murray or American Pharoah, you know that. Woods played his second shot on 17 on Sunday, out of the muddy weeds beside a swollen creek, with beads of sweat on his cheeks, nose and neck. His towel should get a percentage.

Woods’s prime was far longer than you might realize. It began in 1991, when he won his first (of six) USGA amateur titles at age 15, and concluded in 2008, when he won his 14th professional major, at age 32. And here he was, 10 years later, on a long, soft course. Once, he owned the courses like this one, as he owned the American summer. Bring him to Valhalla, to Medinah, to Southern Hills—he knew what to do. He did what Brooks Koepka did here. Woods stomped on those courses, from early Thursday to late Sunday and with every club in his bag, most especially the driver (as needed) and the putter. Plus, the breaks went his way. The teetering putts fell. He played under a magic spell, in a cocoon of his own making. Now there are holes in it. They might be only pinholes, but air escapes. The 25-foot birdie putt on 11 sat practically on the paint. Back in the day, that ball fell. As it did at the 2005 Masters, on 16. As it did at the 2008 U.S. Open, on the 72nd hole. As it always did. Woods used to say, “You gotta get a little lucky.” It sounded arrogant because he was lucky and he was better than everybody. But he was also being accurate. Winners seem to always be a little lucky.

Woods will be on the Ryder Cup team, certainly as an assistant captain, almost certainly as one of Jim Furyk’s four captains picks. You can imagine him winning another PGA Tour event. Bellerive played much more like an ordinary Tour course, but with a far better field. It’s less easy to imagine him winning another major, not with the likes of Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson and Francesco Molinari and Justin Thomas flying around this world.

“The energy was incredible,” Woods said Sunday night. He was speaking of the fans’ energy. He could have been speaking of his own.

Source: Golf.com

Carnoustie, historically the toughest course in The Open’s rota, could see low scoring this week

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – A record heat wave has tee shots at Carnoustie running faster than a caffeinated Usain Bolt.

Players are hitting as little as 7-iron off the tee, and even long-irons are crossing the 300-yard barrier. The toughest course in The Open’s rota is providing a different type of test this week.

“Car-nasty” became notorious in 1999, when lush rough and narrow fairways made the course near-impossible. The course was damp again in 2007. Even with easier conditions, 7 under par was Padraig Harrington’s winning score.

Now players will face a firm and fast Carnoustie on fairways that have been yellowed by a record heat wave in the United Kingdom.

Last month was the second-hottest June on record in the United Kingdom. Motherwell, Scotland, recently hit 91.8 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in Scotland.

“I don’t remember the last time we went six weeks without rain,” a British farmer recently told the New York Times. “Only a proper week of full-on British rain can save the situation now.”

That’s not in the forecast this week. Carnoustie has received half its usual rain over the past three months. There have been occasional sprinkles this week, but not enough to alter the conditions. The forecast for the remainder of the week calls for minimal precipitation.

That means the 7,402-yard course, the longest in The Open rota, will play significantly shorter. And the rough that tormented players in 1999 now offers little penalty because it is so dry and brittle. With well-watered greens and breezes that may not blow harder than 20 mph, there is some talk about an unprecedented week of scoring at Carnoustie. No one has finished double-digits under par in seven Opens here.

“When the wind is blowing, it is the toughest golf course in Britain,” said World Golf Hall of Fame member Sir Michael Bonallack. “And when it’s not blowing, it’s probably still the toughest.”

Some are comparing this week to 2006, when Tiger Woods won at Royal Liverpool. He hit driver just once on a course so parched that balls kicked up dust when they hit the turf. He shot 18 under par to beat Chris DiMarco by two shots.

This week, Woods put a new, lower-lofted 2-iron in his bag to send his tee shots scooting down the fairway. There’s one problem, though.

“I haven’t been able to use it that many times … because I’m hitting my other irons so far,” he said. That includes a 333-yard 3-iron on the 18th hole.

That hole used to play as a par-5. Now players who hit driver are left with little more than a pitch shot. Dustin Johnson drove it into the burn fronting the green. The 12-yard-wide hazard crosses the fairway 450 yards from the tee.

Along with the bothersome Barry Burn, which plays an outsized role for such a narrow hazard, it will be imperative for players to avoid Carnoustie’s penal pot bunkers.

“I haven’t seen one yet that … I could actually hit it on the green out of,” Dustin Johnson said.

Carnoustie’s bunkers, among the toughest in the British Isles, are comparable to miniature water hazards because both hand out a one-shot penalty. Some of the vertical faces are 6 feet tall. The bunkers are so small that players are often left with awkward stances, and the ball is so close to the face that it’s impossible to do much more than pitch out.

Johnny Miller lost the 1975 Open here when he needed two shots to get out of a fairway bunker on the 18th hole. He made bogey to fall one short of the playoff won by Tom Watson.

There are, however, a few opportunities for long hitters to blow their tee shots over the traps because the rough is of little concern. On other holes, it is better to lay back short of the bunkers.

“There’s 5,000 different ways … to play these holes out here,” Reed said. The safe play often leaves a more difficult approach shot, though.

“There’s no perfect strategy that eliminates risk,” said Harrington. “It’s very difficult to play short of the bunkers all the time. The beauty of the course is that there are a lot of different ways of playing it, but eventually you’re going to have to grow up and hit the shots.”

Players will certainly have plenty of decisions to make. Carnoustie has just three par-3s, leaving players with 15 tee shots on par-3s and par-4s. They may be hitting wood off the tee of the 248-yard 16th, as well. Jack Nicklaus hit driver into that hole in the 1968 Open.

Choosing a club isn’t the only challenge. Trajectory will have an outsized effect on the distance shots travel.

During Tuesday’s practice round, Reed hit two tee shots with 6-iron on the 16th, which was playing downwind. The “chipped” shot, the one he hit with 70 percent of his strength, rolled 40 yards past the shot he hit with a full swing.

“Trajectory means a lot,” Woods said. He didn’t foresee a lot of opportunities to hit driver because it is so difficult to control a ball that rolls on Carnoustie’s sloping fairways for 60 or more yards. But U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka said he could hit up to 9 drivers.

“Sometimes we can just take all the bunkers out (of play) by hitting driver,” he said. “There’s no reason not to take advantage of that, especially with the rough being not so thick.”

Source: PGATour.com