So, you want to get a really short, really cryptic answer from Tiger Woods, one of those responses in which the words say nothing but the smirk is an eloquent “Blow it out your watch pocket”?
Ask him if Rory McIlroy intimidates him.
“It’s got to be the hair, yeah,” he said Wednesday. And with that Woods summed up his feelings toward a recent Greg Norman observation to foxsports.com that, “Tiger’s really intimidated by Rory. … I think he knows his time’s up, and that’s normal.”
Of course it’s not the Northern Irish lad’s locks that are at issue (impressive as they may be, especially to an older gent with an ebbing hairline).
Rather, they are locked in a two-way battle for the heart, mind and vault combination of golf. It is the classic story of the aging (36-year-old) champion trying to ward off a young upstart (23), a sort of ‘Rocky III” with courtesy cars.
As if to emphasize the rivalry, the PGA Tour’s playoffs have been all about placing these two in the same camera shot. They have been paired together four times in the FedEx Cup preliminaries. And, as Nos. 1 and 2 in the point standings, as well as the world rankings, they will be together again Thursday afternoon at 1:55 at East Lake for the first round of the Tour Championship. The gallery they command may cause the course to tilt and yaw like an overloaded schooner.
The Tour Championship is all about simplifying the golf-watching experience, cutting through all the clutter of the usual big field, reducing the options to a manageable 30. Confine that further to just two guys, and that’s something the casual fan can really latch onto.
Even the not-so-casual observer has enjoyed the show. “It’s fun for the game,” said Brandt Snedeker, fifth in FedEx points. “It has been great for TV. I loved watching it and being part of it.”
McIlroy is not hiding from the mano-a-mano. He even has dreamed aloud of meeting Woods beyond the Tour Championship, in some pivotal Ryder Cup match the following week. “I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I wouldn’t enjoy it because I would,” he said Wednesday.
Others have shrunk from the challenge of trying to hang with Woods, fearing they dare not fly too close to that particular sun. McIlroy appears completely at ease with the notion, which likely contributes to the fact that he wears the world’s No. 1 ranking so easily and has won a couple of majors at an age that puts him on a career arc similar to Woods.
McIlroy has won four times on the PGA Tour this year, including one major and the past two FedEx Cup events. Woods has won three times in a comeback season. Those who have been really paying attention have no doubt about whose game is in better repair.
“As far as the complete package, all the edge has to go to Rory from a confidence standpoint, driving standpoint, putting standpoint,” analyst Roger Maltbie said. “Right now, he’s on top of all those elements.”
“Rory’s bad shots are better than Tiger’s bad shots now,” analyst Johnny Miller said.
For his part Woods has been caught actually praising a rival, a kindness he has avoided in the past. This guy, the one of whom Woods has said is “just an amazing talent,” must be really special.
There are reports of a budding friendship between the two — the Tiger and the Kid, a Rudyard Kipling kind of tale. It has been pretty much left to McIlroy to describe how they bust each other’s chops, how he teases Woods about his age and his hair loss and how Woods retaliates with short jokes.
As McIlroy recently told an Irish newspaper, “He’ll ask me, ‘What do you do when [girlfriend and statuesque tennis star Caroline Wozniacki] wears heels?’”
Plus now, McIlroy revealed, Woods has a new nickname for him. “He calls me the Intimidator,” he said. And so was born a precious trivia question, linking two of the world’s most dissimilar sports: What do Rory McIlroy and Dale Earnhardt have in common?
And how does Woods feel about the way his friendship with McIlroy has been characterized in the press?
“I really don’t care,” he answered.
Given the chance to be tickled by the intimidation question, McIlroy obliged.
“How can I intimidate Tiger Woods?” he said. “I mean, he’s been the biggest thing ever in our sport.
“How could some little 23-year-old from Northern Ireland with a few wins come up and intimidate him? It’s just not possible.”
Even Woods was a little more expansive on the general topic of whether intimidation is a viable concept in the genteel world of golf.
“No one the size of Ray Lewis is going to hit me coming over the middle,” Woods said. “This is a different kind of sport. We go out there and we play our own game.”
If this were only an Oklahoma drill, Woods may be able to take out his smaller rival and end the talk of a young usurper. But his chosen game requires a response more subtle and sustained and in some ways more difficult to muster.
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