REWIRING the connection between talent and success, Tiger Woods energised the debate over the possibility, however remote, of achieving a perfect season in golf when he holed a 24-foot putt on the last green at Bay Hill on Sunday to win his fourth event of 2008 in four starts and his seventh consecutive tournament in a row.
Backed down to 10/1 to become the first golfer to win the professional Grand Slam – all four major championships in one season – and 11/10 to win the Masters at Augusta next month, Woods is also a spartan 16/1 with the bookmakers to better Byron Nels
on's long standing record set in 1945 of 11 consecutive tournament wins.
Woods has won all four events he's entered this year, the Desert Classic in Dubai on the European Tour and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Accenture Match Play and the Buick Invitational on the PGA Tour in America. Of the last nine events he's entered around the world (including the unofficial Target World Challenge), Woods has won eight and finished second in the other to Phil Mickelson last September.
Tiger's closing-hole triumph in Orlando marked his 64th win on the PGA Tour, the same mark as Ben Hogan. At 32, he can expect to overhaul Jack Nicklaus' tally of 73 in a year or two and, provided he remains free of injury, Sam Snead's all-time record of 82 wins is also looking vulnerable.
Nicklaus already concedes that Woods, who has 13 major titles to his name, will almost certainly eclipse his record of 18 major wins. "All records are made to be broken," observed the Golden Bear. "He's such a great player with such a great work ethic. My guess is that he will probably break it in two or three or five or six years' time."
Asked if Woods could win the modern Grand Slam and go on to win more tournaments than anyone else, Arnold Palmer replied simply "Yes" and "Yes". Recalling how Woods came to talk to him before joining the professional ranks, Palmer added: "Other players have come to see me, but they've done it after they turned pro. Tiger came to me when he was still an amateur. He covered every aspect of the game and personal matters that might be obstacles that could affect his game."
If no one in the game's history has previously left so little to chance, or paid as much attention to fitness and mental strength as well as technique, Nicklaus, for one, would urge caution on the subject of a perfect season in which Tiger might win every event he enters. "He's having a great year," added golf's pre-eminent champion. "But he'll get beaten. There are just too many great players."
Woods, intriguingly, can remember once before going a year without defeat. He was 11 years old and won all 36 tournaments he entered on the California junior circuit. Whether he could ever dream of repeating that feat against the world's best players is another matter. Asked on Sunday in Orlando what might stop his winning streak, Woods smiled and replied: "All of the players in the event."
Mind you, should he keep holing putts like the long, snaking effort on the 72nd hole at Bay Hill which snuffed out the challenge of Bart Bryant then there's no saying what Tiger will go on to achieve this season. The poet Ted Hughes, in another context, once wrote about 'the diamond point of will'. That sense of mind over matter was evident again here when Woods made his first tournament-winning birdie putt on the home hole since he defeated Phil Mickelson at the same event in 2001.
Not having made a putt of 20 feet or more all week, Woods' body language was so positive as he stalked this testing birdie opportunity on one of Bay Hill's most treacherous holes that Palmer himself was convinced even before the ball was struck that Tiger would not need a play-off to win.
Perhaps more than anything else in golf, Woods relishes being in control. "I have to say it's knowing that you have an opportunity to end the tournament and it's in your hands, not anyone else's," he said. "It's like having the ball with a few seconds to go; do you want it or not want it. I would much rather have it in my hands."
While there's almost a sense of the superhuman about Tiger when winning is on the line, his rivals can at least take heart from a glimpse of the great man's mortality at Bay Hill. After rifling an iron to set up another birdie opportunity on the tenth green, Woods three-putted from just six feet, including a forced two-footer for par which lipped out.
But just as he made light of the fact he trailed the leader by seven strokes on Friday evening, Tiger immediately erased that error from his mind, concentrated on expert shot-making and went on to embrace glory on the last.
On Thursday, Woods heads to Doral and the World Golf Championship event which he won so convincingly last spring. It promises to be yet another thrilling chapter in what already looks like the most extraordinary season in golfing history.
The full article contains 896 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
