Thursday, April 06, 2000
Garcia growls at Tiger mystique
He won't be intimidated - until Sunday
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods has burrowed so deeply into other golfers' heads, he should charge them rent for thinking. “You start thinking, "Can I beat him?'” one affected player, Davis Love III, has said. This is their story, and they're sticking to it.
Some of them.
On Wednesday, Sergio Garcia is posing for pictures with pretty women in the Masters gallery. Then he is signing autographs. Then he is posing again, favoring several pictures with a teen-idol grin, this time with his arm around a blonde.
Uh, Sergio?
“Yes.”
“What do you make of the so-called Tiger Mystique?“
“What's that?” Garcia shoots back. It is not that he doesn't understand the question. It is that he is being flip.
“Some players have admitted to being intimidated by Tiger, especially on Sunday afternoons.”
“OK,” Garcia says. He's not smiling anymore. “Some.” Garcia ends the interview.
Who is this kid, and why is he tugging on Superman's cape? The rest of the PGA Tour would rather see a tax collector at its doorstep than Woods on the Sunday leaderboard. “He has some sweet momentum right now,” Seve Ballesteros decided Wednesday.
Woods won six PGA events in a row. In his last 11 tournaments, he has finished either first or second. We said he'd be scary when he learned to control his game and his fame. He has. He is.
“I want to be the best player who ever lived,” Woods says.
Few men try for best ever; fewer succeed. Nobody's disputing Woods' chances now.
Almost nobody.
“If you play great, you can beat him,” Garcia decided. “What you can't do is say, "He's the best player in the world; I can't beat him.' He's not going to play great all the time.”
Oh, this could be good.
We saw it last summer, at the PGA Championship. Thirteenth green on Sunday. Garcia drops a birdie putt. Woods is back at the tee. Garcia motions to Tiger with a wave of his hand.
I don't fear this, the gesture says. I relish it. Bring it on.
Golf is the most mental of hikes; the Masters is its Olympus. Fear — and its evil twin, intimidation — are permanent residents at Augusta National. The Masters is home to azaleas and crumbled psyches.
Add to that Woods' presence on the leaderboard on Sunday afternoon, and you have the potential for seismic, Greg Norman-esque meltdowns.
For some.
“I'm still very young,” Garcia says. “There is a lot to come. I can play well. I showed it to you. If it takes a little while, that's OK. Tiger his second year didn't play very well either.”
Garcia is referring to Woods' second Masters. Tiger missed the cut.
Garcia is 20 years old, a pro only a year. He looks like a child. Probably, he has neither the temperament nor the experience to knock Woods off his mission, which is to savage every major championship and continue his assault on Jack Nicklaus' pre-eminence.
Garcia has not matched his brilliant run at the PGA, where Woods shook him off by a stroke. But Garcia has game. And he is not afraid.
While churning up the Tour, Woods has caused players to find the fitness trailer and the salad bar. He has caused them to play for second place. Worse, he has caused them to admit that.
If Woods is playing well, he doesn't care what anyone else is doing. He attributed his loss to Hal Sutton a few weeks ago to his own game: “I didn't tighten up my (final) round as much as I needed to.”
Woods has grown from phenomenon to champion. When he won the '97 Masters, Woods was a whiff of perfume; now, he's a field of lavender.
But Sutton beat him this year. Phil Mickelson beat him. So did Darren Clarke.
“I'm thinking to win,” Garcia decided. He played Wednes day with fellow Spaniards Ballesteros, who won the '80 Masters at age 23, and two-time champion Jose-Maria Olazabal.
Garcia is only 20. Too full of himself for the four days ahead; too young to realize it. But you have to love his thinking. Tiger may have knocked on Sergio's head. He didn't get in.
“I play the course,” Garcia says, “not the players.”
Let the gamesmanship begin.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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