Woods Even the Best at Slump-and-Run

To: Golf Writers

From: Tiger Woods

Re: Slump

Dear Scribes:

“I know who you are.”

Regards, Tiger

Great, and perhaps we can all move on to something else, such as how Woods is poised to run roughshod over the field next week at Augusta National and win the Masters . . . which, by the way, he hasn’t done in four whole years!

You would have to be drinking from Rae’s Creek to think that Woods isn’t going to be favored, and rightly so. But the words Tiger/Augusta/favorite are hardly news when used in combination.

Tiger would be favored at the Masters even if he hadn’t won his last two tournaments, which he has done, thus successfully ending any and all talk of a “slump.”

Make no mistake, such a characterization didn’t please Tiger much at all, but he grinned and made the best of it, right up to the moment he met the writers after his rain-delayed victory at the Players Championship.

“Obviously, [the ‘slump’ reporters] don’t really understand the game that well, because if you look at the way I was playing, I wasn’t playing that bad,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was missing cuts every week.

“I was right here with a chance to win in virtually every tournament I teed up in and I think that’s pretty good. It’s just that I had not won. And that’s part of the game. It is a game that’s very fickle.

“Now I’ve won two tournaments in a row and I’m sure they will write about something else.”

Absolutely correct, Tiger. For the next week, prepare to read about how you’re going to launch yourself into another green jacket. Woods has to be savvy enough to recognize the treatment he received from the writers wasn’t wrong, only sort of misguided. Instead of “slump,” what Tiger experienced in a stretch of golf dating to his last PGA Tour victory last August should have been called “winless streak.”

No one could argue with that. And it’s not as if Tiger’s the only one who has experienced similar passages. Jack Nicklaus won the Byron Nelson in May of 1970 and didn’t win again until the 1971 PGA Championship--a span of nearly 15 months.

If Tiger went that long, somebody would retire him.

Anyway, Woods continues to insist that he’s not really hitting the ball any better than he has in the last month or so. It’s just that he’s on greens on which he can make his putts.

He says the most important part of his game at Augusta National is to control the trajectory of his iron shots.

That’s wrong. The most important part of his game at Augusta National is to control the spin of the golf media. All he needs to do to accomplish that is to revisit his 1997 Masters tournament. Everything else will fall nicely into place.

It’s a minor point, but Woods knows that no one has won the Players and the Masters in the same year.

Said Woods: “That’s just the way it is.”

Or, that’s just the way it has been up to now.

VIJAY’S DAY COMING?

Is Vijay Singh ready to defend his Masters title? It sure looks that way. He had one bad hole Sunday at the Players Championship when he triple bogeyed the 14th, but he finished strong and wound up second to Woods.

In fact, Singh has played each of his 28 rounds this year at par or better, which is something that Woods can’t say.

“I’m really comfortable with my golf swing,” Singh said. “[But] I think the important part is my putting. I’m putting well. I’m making a lot of those six- or eight-footers, where I used to have a 50-50 chance of making them.

“That works into my game as well. If you are chipping from off the green, you don’t feel like you have to hit it inside a foot to make a putt.”

GUMBEL GRUMBLE

It doesn’t look as though we’re going to see Greg Gumbel in the booth on CBS golf telecasts with Jim Nantz.

Says Gumbel, who just renewed his contract with the network: “I don’t know golf, I don’t watch golf, I don’t like golf.”

Note to Greg: Better watch out or they’ll make you a rules official.

JUDGING AMY

You may have noticed that it was a short week for Amy Alcott at the Nabisco Championship, in which she celebrated the 10th anniversary of her 29th and last LPGA victory by missing the cut.

But first, the Nabisco?

“It’s still the Dinah to me,” said Alcott, who began the winner’s tradition of diving into the pool at the 18th hole when she won in 1988--urged on by Dinah Shore.

There was no pond-jumping this time. Alcott shot rounds of 79-80 for 15 over par and missed the cut by eight shots. Only one player in the field of 96 who turned in a scorecard shot higher. At 45, Alcott is already a Hall of Fame member and her reputation is secure, but that’s not the point. She believes she is going to win again.

“I know I can still win playing fewer tournaments, but the way the competition is, it’s really hard to do what I’m doing,” she said. “If I didn’t feel like I could win, I wouldn’t do it. I’ve won in my teens, my 20s and my 30s. I’d like to win in my 40s.”

She is a five-time major winner, but even top 10s have been hard to come by. Since 1996, she has only one. That’s also the last year she played as many as 20 events. Her scaled-back schedule has affected her more than anything else, she says.

“My career has changed,” she said. “For 20 years, I ate, lived and breathed the sport. That was my whole life. You get a little older and you try to smell the roses, but you pay a price because you’re not tournament sharp.”

Alcott, who says she is happier with the balance of her life and career, is the host of a new LPGA event, the Office Depot Hosted by Amy Alcott, which will be played April 12-14 at Wilshire Country Club.

The event benefits the City of Hope.

FOOD FOR GOLF

This just in: Davis Love III is endorsing a new golf food product, the Caddy Bar. The bars come in two flavors--peanut butter and (of course) lemon wedge. Apple slice and chocolate chip should be on their way soon.

CLASSIC BACKTRACKING

News item: ESPN, which signed off the LPGA event in Phoenix while Annika Sorenstam was on her way to shooting a 59, announces it is including her feat in its “Instant Classic” series.

Reaction: This is borderline hilarious, since it wasn’t even a “Tape Delay Classic” when ESPN had the chance to show it live the first time and didn’t.

#@@&*&%$!!

Who says LPGA players are meek? Sometimes over the weekend at the Nabisco Championship, it seemed as if the players were intent on having an image-altering experience on the golf course at Mission Hills.

The best Craig Stadler imitations were contributed by club-slamming Karrie Webb, ball-throwing and club-slamming Pat Hurst and the expletive-spewing Dottie Pepper.

Hey, keep this stuff up and you LPGAers are going to get a whole new TV contract. You can take the XFL’s place.

HOW SWEDE IT IS

So far, Sorenstam leads the LPGA in player-of-the-year points, greens in regulation, scoring average, top 10s, driving accuracy, money and victories.

Dating to the Samsung World Championship last Oct. 15, she has not finished out of the top three in any LPGA event--eight in a row.

A (RICH) GUY NAMED JOE

Before this year, Joe Durant won $1.696 million in 128 tournaments. He has won $1.778 million in nine tournaments this year.

MONTY PILES ON

There was some vintage Colin Montgomerie sarcasm on display at the Players Championship over his tee times the first two rounds. He had a 12:10 p.m. tee time Thursday and a 7:20 a.m time Friday.

Asked which times he would have chosen, he said: “Definitely, 12:10 and 7:20 would be the times I’d pick.”

Nice rip, Monty. What’s more, his playing partners the first two rounds were not exactly show-stoppers--Bob Burns and Carl Paulson. Montgomerie is a seven-time leading money winner on the European Tour, but like Burns and Paulson, he has never won a PGA Tour event.

“Which, ludicrously, is all that matters at this event,” David Davies rued in the Guardian.

Monty tied for 40th.

SIX DEGREES OF DISAPPOINTMENT

Jerry Kelly was fourth at the Players, after leading most of the way. His reaction was classic.

“Good check, good week, so what?”

Hey, that $288,000 you cashed will probably soothe your feelings somewhat.

He continued his lament when someone asked him to describe his degree of disappointment.

Said Kelly: “More toward the bitterly disappointed than just the disappointed.”

Apparently, “somewhat disappointed” didn’t work.

THE KING & BEAR SHOW

So what’s the big deal about Arnold Palmer shooting his age any more?

Palmer, who did it at the Bob Hope Classic, shot his age again--a 71--and beat Nicklaus by five shots this week in a taping of a match in the Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf series.

The head-to-head match was played Monday at the King & The Bear course at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla., the only course they designed together.

At the sixth hole, Nicklaus missed a birdie putt and said: “Apparently, Arnold designed this green.”

The match will be shown Tuesday on ESPN.

OF COURSE

For the first time, Pebble Beach Golf Links is ranked No. 1 on Golf Digest’s latest list of the 100 Greatest Courses in the U.S., bumping Pine Valley to No. 2.

The rest of the top 10 are Augusta National, Cypress Point, Oakmont, Shinnecock Hills, Merion, Winged Foot, Pinehurst No. 2 and Oakland Hills.

Riviera is No. 21, L.A. Country Club North No. 22 and The Quarry in La Quinta No. 91.

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

The Strawberry Farms/Los Angeles Sparks tournament is June 6 at Strawberry Farms in Irvine. The event benefits the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund. Details: (323) 650-7002.

The Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission’s celebrity golf classic will be played May 21 at Riviera Country Club. A tennis tournament will also take place. The event benefits the LASEC, a nonprofit organization that hosts and promotes sports and entertainment events. Details: (213) 236-2361.

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Singhing a Happy Tune

Yes, Tiger Woods has to be the favorite for the Masters after consecutive victories, but defending champion Vijay Singh has his game in gear as well. Here is what Singh has done in his last four tournaments:

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Event Finish Score Money AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am 2 273 (-15) $432,000 Genuity Championship T3 274 (-14) $234,000 Bay Hill Invitational T4 279 (-9) $137,812.50 Players Championship 2 275 (13) $648,000

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