Saturday, June 17
By Bob Harig
Special to ESPN Golf Online
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- His third major championship is all but in the books, only a tumble from the cliffs of Pebble Beach keeping him from a U.S. Open title on Sunday. The only question now is what can stop Tiger Woods in the future?
It's certainly not the so-called challengers who are supposedly his peers in the World Rankings.
|  | | Vijay Singh has had major success in recent years, but not this week. |
They somehow manage to keep their positions without winning tournaments, without giving Woods a fight.
David Duval? A 74 left him tied for 12th, 15 shots back.
Colin Montgomerie? A quadruple-bogey at the eighth hole led to a 79 and a tie for 48th.
Davis Love III? He missed the cut.
Phil Mickelson? At least he's in the top five, although 12 shots behind Woods.
"I don't know how Tiger's done so well," Mickelson said. "To be honest, I quit looking at his score awhile ago. Nobody has the opportunity to catch him."
Mickelson was speaking about the U.S. Open, but he might as well be talking about every tournament. Unless Woods is off his game, nobody can catch him.
He's about to win his 12th PGA Tour event in 21 starts, his 20th overall. At age 24. he will have more victories than any active player on the PGA Tour who is not a senior.
Two-time U.S. Open champion Ernie Els is the only other top-10 player in the world within sight of Woods. His 3-under 68 put him in second place, 10 shots back.
"It seems like we've really got a dominant figure in golf, in any sports, with Tiger Woods," said Els, the only player to break par in the third round. "He's probably the most recognizable sportsman on the planet right now. It's good for us, it's good for me. It seems like golf has taken off with him coming through.
"But it would be even better for golf if someone could step up and play with him. It's very difficult to do. He's a great player."
Suddenly, Jack Nicklaus' major championship records don't seem so sacred. Nicklaus won 18 professional majors over 24 years, an incredible run of success and longevity. Only time will tell if Woods can keep such desire for so long.
But if nobody is there to challenge him, how difficult will it be?
"I think it depends on your competition," Nicklaus said. "I think there are an awful lot of really good players today. But when I won my majors, it was against guys who had won majors themselves. That's the reason I probably got beat several times by (Tom) Watson or (Lee) Trevino or somebody else. They know how to win majors, which made it harder to win.
"Right now, we don't have many guys who have won majors who are playing. It's been all spread out. If Tiger is coming down to the end of a tournament, it's a lot easier for him to win than somebody who hasn't won versus what I had in competition."
Nicklaus wasn't demeaning Woods. But his point is well-founded. To win his majors, Nicklaus defeated players such as Arnold Palmer, who won seven of them, Tom Watson (eight), Lee Trevino (six) and Gary Player (nine).
Look at the list of Woods' closest competitors according to the World Rankings. Duval has not won in 14 months and has no major championships. Montgomerie has won seven straight European money titles, but no tournaments in the United States. He also has no majors, although he's lost two in playoffs before Woods was a pro.
Love, who won the 1997 PGA Championship for his only major, has not won a tournament in more than two years and has shown a penchant for folding when in contention against Woods. Mickelson has won three times this year and held off Woods to win the Buick Invitational, but he is also searching for his first major.
"Tiger has raised the bar," Mickelson said. "He is forcing us to play better."
But they are not performing better. Els, who lost a playoff to Woods at the Mercedes Championship earlier this year and finished second to him last fall at the National Car Rental Classic, has not won since early in 1999. Two-time U.S. Open winner Lee Janzen has not won since his 1998 Open triumph. Justin Leonard, winner of the 1997 British Open, has no victories since the 1998 Players Championship.
The only player to win multiple majors in the Woods era is Vijay Singh, who also has six tour victories in the past four seasons but is 37 years old.
"He has the talent right now to dominate the game for a long time," said Watson of Woods. "Even though we have a lot of great players out there, he's the standard. He's the person on the leaderboard who everyone looks for. You look for him, the players look for him, the golf fans look for him, and the non-golfing fans look for him. He's the man."
Bob Harig, who covers golf for the St. Petersburg Times, writes a column every Tuesday for ESPN Golf Online. |  |
