SPOT ON TOMMY
FLEETWOOD IN MIX AT US PGA
Someone had to do it, eventually. Rein in the reverence, defer on the deference. Play Tiger Woods the man, not the legend.
An old man, with a bad back, struggling to prepare as he once did, forced into long periods of inactivity between tournaments. Talented players, younger players, had cowered from him at the masters as if they had seen a ghost.
But here, Brooks Koepka wasn’t buying it. At a tournament played in the shadow of new York, Koepka was the ghostbuster.
By the time he sank a 20-foot putt on the last to break the course record with a 63 and conclude seven under par, Koepka had nine shots on the reigning masters champion.
Briefly, Woods had rallied midround, even hustled his way on to the leaderboard, tied with a knot of players in fifth place, but it did not last.
Woods gave back three shots in his final five holes to end the day a disappointing two over par. observers such as nick Faldo had it right about Bethpage Black. Woods had won here before — the US open in 2002 — but this is not a course that flatters him. Augusta indulges his errors. He can scramble and make a score.
Get in the wrong spot at the Black Course — with all the doom that name implies — and there are few means of escape. By the end, Woods looked tired and under-prepared, which is perhaps a more realistic take on his present state than those who made him favourite.
It took a superhuman effort for Woods to win the masters and, without doubt, he is inspired by Augusta like nowhere else in the world.
The Black Course is a more heartless opponent. Koepka is, too. At times he reminded of nothing less than Woods in his young prime — a metronome, intense and single-minded, but one with fabulous gifts, too.
Woods could have played a great many young contemporaries yesterday and still been in touch. He parted company with Koepka, however, on the first hole — trailing immediately by three shots — and the gap grew steadily through the day.
It didn’t help that Woods had
drawn the short straw on tee-off time and location — 8.24am local, and from the 10th hole.
The 10th is in a passage of arduous par fours, one of the hardest stretches on the course. Woods missed the fairway with his first, sent a wedge through the green with his second, thinned his third, ended up with a double bogey. Koepka imperiously sank a 30-foot putt for birdie. It looked a long day from that moment.
no wonder Woods sounded a little tetchy when asked about John Daly and his permission to pilot a buggy around this course.
It would havee been helpful for a fortysomething rtyh with a restructured back to catch a ride, too, but Woods marched instead, often many yards behind Koepka, who barely misdirected the ballll until a waywardrd tee shot on the back nine fourth,th, by which time he led the tournament by two clear shots.
Koepka is very meticulous in his preparation and tailors his tournament choices to majors, but Woods’s absence from competition in the build-up to this event was out of sheer necessity.
He cannot play as he once did and even cried off a planned nine holes on the eve of the competition, claiming he felt sick. How much is the ongoing struggle with his back and an understandable reluctance not to show weakness, who knows?
He has managed two six-hour practice rounds here in recent weeks. Yet, as the divide with his playing partner became increasingly apparent, so did the folly of imagining Woods can just pick up where he left off, after his 15th major. So much has changed. not just his status, but the challenge of those around him. Koepka has won three of the last eight majors. no player came at Woods like that in his prime. Woods was that player.
The constant is the love of the people. While an early morning start in a remote part of the course — a good two-mile hike from the first tee and its surrounding hub — meant the Woods gallery was smaller than usual, it was no less enthusiastic.
‘Go, big cat … two in two, Tiger’ every stride was met with a cry of encouragement. ordinary shots — one steered to the wrong plateau of the green — were met with ferocious endorsing cheers. Koepka, meanwhile, was playing the greatest golf the course had ever witnessed to polite applause.
every now and then, he would sink one or leave a fairway iron pin high and get a merited cheer. Yet, without knowing, one would never have Koepka pegged as a fellow American and, arguably, the best gogolfer in the world right now. nno one instructed hihim to make it four in nine. They just wwanted him to hurry up and play, so Tiger could hit again.
The biggest ccheer came not for KKoepka’s ample hheroics, but for Woods’ se ag le on fofour. WooWoods had never made an eagle aat Bethpage Black. Indeed, he last made eagle at the PGA Championship during his third round at Atlanta Athletic Club in 2001. So, yes, it was special. Also, it took Woods into the red numbers which, when a scorecard contains two double bogeys in the first eight holes, is some feat.
Woods was on a roll, shooting a score of three in four consecutive holes after the midway turn. even so, Koepka must have wondered what he had to do to get an Amen. He was performing brilliantly — against the course, the field, even his three-man group.
At the par-three third, Woods had hit to eight feet, Koepka, following him, to 15. Koepka promptly sank his birdie putt, however, which Woods missed.
He left a lot out there, mainly from those shortish distances. His late collapse contained several three-putts.
After, both men thought they could have done better and, incredibly, they are probably right. no tournament is won 18 holes in but there seems a relentlessness about Koepka here that should concern his challengers.
It is not, after all, some bat out of hell that has taken the course record, somebody from nowhere who enjoyed a miraculous day. This is the man many judges fancied strongly before a ball was hit.
Woods will know that, too. He is not nine shots off some random bolter. The early leader will prove incredibly hard to shift.
‘I’m a long way back,’ conceded Woods. ‘The golf course is playing tough. It’s not that hard to make bogey, but very hard to make birdie. And Brooks played well. I felt like I was getting back into it with the eagle but unfortunately I couldn’t keep it together at the end.’
As he signed for his card, Woods’ face held that thousand-yard stare familiar to all.
often, it comes with focus on an outcome, yesterday maybe it contained the realisation of the task ahead. The next generation couldn’t handle Woods’s apparition at Augusta, but this week in new York feels very different.
Troubled by ghosts? Who ya gonna call? Brooks Koepka.