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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Woods putts distance between himself, world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
For the longest time, I have thought that Jack Nicklaus was the surest pressure putter I’d ever seen. Over the weekend, in fact, I saw him roll in a few, delivered by television, in the Skins Game played in Maui, and he is now 68 years old.
As it turned out, Tiger Woods was finishing off a show of his own in the desert suburbs of Tucson, devastating the field in the World Match Play Championship. This was, I’d presume, another step in Woods’ concentrated campaign to make this his year of the Grand Slam. This was no stroll in the park, at first. In fact, J.B. Holmes, the rustic from Kentucky, had him down by three holes with five to play. It was then that Woods snapped out of it, as if somebody had pushed his button. He putted Holmes into submission, and they weren’t tap-ins. Some were cross-country putts that left Holmes gasping.
The Arron Oberholser match was routine, “barely raising a sweat,” in the words of Doug Ferguson, the Associated Press golf writer. It is not to say that Woods rode a gravy train into the championship. He can be vulnerable. Last year, a left-handed Australian, the somewhat lank and ungainly Nick O’Hern with the broomstick putter, took him out in the third round. This time, here came Aaron Baddeley, a younger and handsomer Aussie. Twice Baddeley had his chance to close out the match, but twice he missed putts of some 10 or 12 feet that would have ended it.
From that point on, Woods turned the thing into a train wreck. K.J. Choi, the Korean who won Woods’ Washington tournament last summer, fell next, and the less one dwells upon the match with Stewart Cink, the better for the Georgia Tech alum. Back here in Georgia there was a colony of Cink believers who, with an ear to history, thought that this was his time to give his career a fresh launching.
You see, when they were collegians, the Stanford golf team came to Georgia for competitions. Woods was a freshman at Stanford, Cink an upperclassman at Tech. They were matched twice, and Cink won both. Nothing more realistic than fairy tale hope. Years have passed since collegiate days, and the two have taken off to different altitudes, one soaring, the other living happily ever after.
Woods turned it on once again Sunday against Cink. He sank putts halfway across Gila County. Even when the match was long since beyond a competition, he completed a week of putting the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen. When he needed them, he made them. When he didn’t need them, he made them.
Then I opened the latest issue of Golf Digest, and there I found his recipe. “Making Putting Natural,” is the title. (Natural for him, maybe, but you and me?)
“Let your putter release to the hole with your right hand.” (That’s first. The problem is, I play left-handed.)
“Grip pressure varies from player to player.” (Mine is fairly light.)
“The shape of the stroke-path is another choice.” (This is heavy scientific stuff.)
“The key is to find what works for you.” (Now you’re talking.)
“I’ve started to monitor my stroke on a computer to make sure of my mechanics.” (This is sort of rising to another zone.)
“To practice the release, I focus on my right hand. I’m most consistent when my stroke path is one degree in to out through impact, with the putter face releasing.” (Now you’re way over our head?)
“I swing on an arc with the face rotating from open to closed.”
Well, there you have it. That’s about the best I can do for you. You have all his secrets. Most all. You don’t think it might be his readjusted eyes, do you? You know, the new vision he advertises.
Whatever, when it comes to that last great putt of all, I’ll go with Tiger.
Permalink | | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Thrashers can’t pretend at contending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Three months after the deluded Bruce Levenson exclaimed, “Stanley Cup!” during a win in game No. 21 of an 82-game season, reality smacked a franchise and a shortsighted owner back to Fantasyland on Tuesday.
The Thrashers are not a Stanley Cup team.
They are not a playoff team.
They are not a team on the rise with structure or promise or any semblance of either.
If there was a blueprint in season one, or two, or seven, somebody must have spilled coffee on it. Because this can’t possibly have been the plan.
Season eight, and it’s another fire sale at the trade deadline. Is this what you signed up for? No? Then don’t blame Marian Hossa.
Regardless of what you may think of Hossa as a player — good, special or somewhere in between — understand that what happened Tuesday was less about a talented forward desiring to test free agency this summer than it was about making a statement on the Thrashers: their past, their present, certainly their future.
Money is always an element of these decisions. Hossa knew he could have landed a big contract in Atlanta. But in this case, it really wasn’t all about money. He wants to play for a Cup contender. The Thrashers aren’t remotely close, the nonsensical ramblings of an owner notwithstanding. The general manager, Don Waddell, entered his eighth trade deadline with another sub-.500 team and 62 points — closer to the team with the worst record (six ahead of Los Angeles) than the last playoff spot (seven points behind Carolina).
Gee. I guess it wasn’t all Bob Hartley’s fault.
Whether Hossa is worthy of landing an annual salary of $7 million to $8 million is debatable. He disappeared for stretches this season. He hasn’t driven to the net with the same zeal or consistency since banging his knee late last season. He has never been a factor in the playoffs.
But what he remains is one of the smartest players in the league — on and off the ice. He looked around. He wasn’t impressed. He liked the city. He liked his teammates. But a star with options wants to know there’s more. He didn’t like the direction. Could he have bypassed free agency? Sure. But why? There was no obvious payoff.
Waddell let center Marc Savard go in free agency two years ago. The team, already weak on the blueline, has had a void in the middle ever since. This was the second straight year the Thrashers seemingly were built to be average. It’s why Waddell had to scramble at the deadline last year to make the playoffs, dealing picks and prospects for Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik.
Didn’t work this season. The Thrashers started 0-6, costing Hartley his job. Waddell stepped behind the bench and ignited the team to an 11-4 run. Some expected Waddell to eventually turn the team over to assistant coach Brad McCrimmon, but it never happened. After winning 11 of 15, the Thrashers won only 18 of 42 (18-20-4).
With playoff hopes dying again, Waddell did what he so often does — he dealt real players for magic beans and elixirs, with promises of a better tomorrow. Departing: Hossa and Pascal Dupuis. Arriving: a first-round pick, a top prospect (Angelo Esposito) and two other guys you’ve never heard of.
It’s Groundhog Day.
Hossa goes to Pittsburgh — the Thrashers’ alternate universe. The Penguins won two Stanley Cups and stayed competitive for several seasons before tearing down the roster. But after missing the playoffs for four straight years, they have been contenders for the past two seasons. And look at their lineup now: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Ryan Whitney, Ryan Malone, Hossa.
Pittsburgh probably didn’t want to deal both a No. 1 and Esposito, but it could afford to. Amazing what happens when you draft and trade well.
Tragedy led to Hossa’s arrival from Ottawa three years ago. Dany Heatley wanted to live and work elsewhere after the one-car wreck that took the life of teammate Dan Snyder. Emotionally, Heatley was damaged goods. The trade was understandable. But the belief here was that if Heatley ever fully recovered, it wouldn’t matter how good Hossa was because Heatley would be better. He did. And he is.
Now Waddell is replacing Hossa for a pick and prospects. The trade is understandable because the Thrashers would’ve lost Hossa for nothing. But this isn’t a time to weigh the who’s of a deal. It’s a time to ponder the why’s. And nobody is yelling, “Stanley Cup!”
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