Full Court Press
[ON THE TEE]
TIGER WOODS has won four consecutive majors, not the mythical grand slam of golf. He may try to convince you they are one and the same, but don't let him. It’s not a slam—
and don’t let Tiger tell
you differentThere's a reason no one has won four modern majors in a calendar year. It's an arduous task that tests not only the physical talents of the man, but the mental makeup as well.
Who's to say had Woods won the Masters last year, he would proceed to take the next three? The pressure at last August's PGA Championship would have been suffocating had he needed it to complete the slam. Far more than what he endured last weekend at the Masters.
Not since Jack Nicklaus rumbled out of the forest 40 years ago has a golfer dominated the PGA Tour as Woods has these past five years. Sure, he has a gift. All the greats ones do. But Woods also has a mental toughness, an ability to bend men's wills, that sets him apart from the rest.
You saw it last Sunday on the back nine of the Masters. Every time someone tried to take the lead, Woods had an answer in kind. Even when he briefly stumbled by three-putting the par-5 15th, his closest competitors bogeyed the par-3 16th, giving Woods all the wiggle room he needed.
There's no question that Woods is the best in the business. He already has pocketed more than $23 million in PGA Tour earnings. He has won three U.S. amateur championships and six major titles, including the last four over a 12-month period, prompting Nicklaus to ask:
"Is it a Grand Slam? I don't think it makes a difference," Nicklaus told the press after Woods removed his second green jacket from the Masters shelf. "What it's called is irrelevant. What he's done is what matters most, and what he's done is unbelievable. I call it the most remarkable feat I have ever seen or heard of in golf."
THE CBS GOLF ANALYSTS gushed that nothing else in sports can match it, which is an absurd statement in and of itself. Like golf, professional tennis has its own grand slam. Major League Baseball has the triple crown, as does horse racing.
When a 3-year-old captures the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes two weeks later and the grueling Belmont Stakes three weeks after that, it truly defines a thoroughbred. The horse that wins the Preakness and the Belmont one year, isn't invited back to the Kentucky Derby the next.
How long has it been since anyone captured the triple crown in baseball? You have to go back to 1967, when Boston Red Sox outfielder Carl Yastrzemski led the American League in RBIs and batting average and tied for the lead in home runs. Nobody let him go from June of one year to April of the next. It just doesn't work that way.
No man has won the grand slam of tennis since Rod Laver turned the trick in 1969. He is the only male to win it twice, an accomplishment Woods will likely never match in golf. Heck, he hasn't even won it once yet, no matter what he might try to tell you.
Paul Arnett has covered all the major golf tournaments in Hawaii, including the Sony Open, Mercedes Championship and the Grand Slam of Golf. E-mail him at parnett@starbulletin.com
Paul Arnett has been covering sports
for the Star-Bulletin since 1990.
Email Paul: parnett@starbulletin.com.