Tiger Woods arrives at this Masters in many guises.
He is the prohibitive favorite. The latest odds list him at 3-to-1. The next closest is Rory McIlroy at 8-to-1. Everyone else is at least a double-digit proposition. Other players, however, are preparing to offer token resistance. “It’s not a foregone conclusion,” Adam Scott said of Woods winning a fifth Masters.
He is a one-man economy. The underground market for Masters badges is happily riding the hot-air balloon of Woods’ resurgence. Ratings should follow. Welcome to the latest CBS hit: “NCIS: Amen Corner.”
Claiming to have found a “balance” in his life since his marital shipwreck, Woods is the rare celebrity wearing the face of contentment. He has happily yielded his spot at the supermarket magazine/tabloid rack to any given Kardashian.
Woods also is a player in need of jump-starting his greatest-ever campaign.
At this Masters, Woods is dead even with the legend he so blatantly pursues. Once well ahead of the pace Jack Nicklaus set in winning a record 18 major championships, Woods has messed around and allowed that considerable lead to wither. He now is at virtually the same place as Nicklaus was 36 years ago when he arrived in Augusta as an athlete with the bulk of his glory behind him.
Woods at 37, on April 10, 2013: 60 major appearances, 14 victories.
Nicklaus at 37, on April 10, 1977: 60 major appearances, 14 victories.
Woods, however, would have a big issue with the idea that he is somehow running out of time to surpass Nicklaus’ standard of greatness. Don’t let the knee surgeries or the hair loss fool you, he is still feeling like he has just made the turn on his professional life.
“(Golfers) have very expansive careers, and I feel like I’m basically right in the middle of mine. I have a lot of good years ahead of me,” he said.
He makes no secret of his ambitions. Eighteen majors would not be enough. It’s still 19-or-bust for the player who has measured himself against Nicklaus since he was a boy staring at his bedroom Golden Bear posters.
Nicklaus remains the model now in the afternoon of Woods’ career.
“It took Jack a while to get to 18, all the way until he was 46 years old. So, there’s plenty of opportunities for me,” he said. That is 36 opportunities, to be precise.
Trouble is, Woods has not won a major in the previous 18 opportunities, previously winning on one leg at the 2008 U.S. Open. His record over that nearly five-year fallow period: A couple of seconds; five top-five finishes; two missed cuts and four tournaments skipped because of injury.
Between the time he won his first and his 15th major, Nicklaus never went more than two years without at least one victory.
So, we’re talking about the need for a significant fourth-quarter rally by Woods.
There was the hidden difficulty of trying to match Nicklaus’ feat. To win so many majors meant more than playing some otherworldly golf. It meant being able to consistently order an ever-changing life so that reality did not interfere with a game. It meant staying fixed over a little white ball with a hundred other issues tugging at your pants’ cuff. It meant not being consumed by the kind of hubris that took Woods on such an ugly detour.
Said Woods: “I just feel like over the years (Nicklaus) was the most consistent at putting himself in position to win major championships and win tournaments.”
He went on: “You start realizing that it gets a little more difficult as you get older to balance. You have more things that are going on. I mean, he had five kids and was trying to balance a family and golf-course design. He owned MacGregor at the time (from 1982-86), a bunch of different things going on. It becomes more things are pulling at you away from winning golf tournaments, and it’s about getting the balance.
“He was better at that than anybody else, and hopefully over the course of my career when all is said and done, I will have been pretty good at it as well.”
Nicklaus won four more majors after the age of 37. Once in his 30s (1978 British Open at 38). And three times in his 40s (1980 U.S. Open and PGA Championship at 40, 1986 Masters at the advanced age of 46, a magical occasion of which Nicklaus now says, “I remembered how to play.”)
Woods, having regained the world’s No. 1 ranking, obviously still thinks he can surpass that. In fact, talking only 19 majors could be, to his mind, a bit of a short sell.
His buddy Notah Begay recently told Sports Illustrated, “He is focused on 20. That may be a little hard to believe, considering what’s transpired in the last three years, but that’s where his focus is.”
Nicklaus still thinks he can beat the record.
“I’ve said it and I continue to say it, that I still expect him to break my record. I think he’s just too talented, to driven and too focused on that,” Nicklaus said Tuesday.
Various experts behind the microphone, even those who had considered Woods out of time and short on game, are beginning to reconsider.
“I went on record last year saying I don’t think he’d break Jack’s record, but he wasn’t playing well, and now I just don’t know,” said ESPN’s Curtis Strange. “I think we’ve come to realize that with Tiger — you don’t best against him.
“I hope he gets to 17 because golf is going to be on the front page of every newspaper in the world when he goes for that 18th.”
It is a mathematical certainty that Woods cannot get to 18 or more before he wins that long-delayed 15th. And he better get to it soon. If not now, when?
“He’s going to have to figure it out,” Nicklaus said. “I mean, it’s been a while. I think if he figures it out here, it will be a great boost for him. If he doesn’t figure it out here, after the spring he’s had (three PGA Tour victories), I think it will be a lot tougher for him.”
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