Butz

A dent in Tiger Woods' legend



By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Columnist Sun Apr 8, 10:00 PM ET

AUGUSTA, Ga. - A 4-iron wasn't the only thing that Tiger Woods broke Sunday at the Masters. Fractured, too, was the myth that the man couldn't be beat once he grabbed the outright lead in the final round of a major.

Twice before, Woods had been caught and passed. But both times — in the 2000
PGA Championship at Valhalla and here a year later — Woods came out on top. In this wackiest of Masters, he held the lead for all of a few minutes after making a birdie at the second hole, then spent the rest of the day trying in vain to catch a rotating cast of characters going by him in Augusta National's passing lane.

"I had a chance, but looking back over the week, I basically blew this tournament on two rounds where I had bogey-bogey finishes," Woods said, referring to Nos. 17 and 18.

"That's 4-over on two holes," he added. "You can't afford to do that and win major championships."

Zach Johnson was parked on the 18th green with the winning score of 1-over 289 when Woods walked onto the 17th tee knowing he would need a birdie-birdie finish over those same two holes just to force a playoff.

The greatest front-runner in golf made par at 17 after driving the ball into the right rough and trying to float a wedge on the wind at his back and land it close enough to have a shot at a 3. No sooner had the ball landed in a bunker short of the green than Woods said loudly, "What the hell happened there?"

Though he wasn't officially done until his approach shot from the fairway to the final green stopped rolling some 20 feet to the right of the pin, he knew a miracle finish wasn't in the cards the moment the ball left the clubface.

"I was sitting in the locker room waiting for Tiger to hit his second shot on 18," Johnson recalled. "Before he hit it, I'm like, 'He's done stranger things.'"

Not this time.

Asked whether it was different being forced to play catch-up, something Woods' rivals know only too well, Tiger simply said, "I'm playing the same holes he (Johnson) is, so if I make the same birdies as he does on the same holes, it's a moot point."

That's true, of course. But there's nobody in the game, no matter what club he has in his hands, that you would rather lay money down on. Woods has been golf's version of Michael Jordan with the basketball in his hands and the clock ticking down, Lance Armstrong with a crushing mountain climb coming into view, Joe Montana with first-and-10 and a minute to go the length of the field. In other words, clutch.

This time he was anything but.

"He guts-ed it," Stuart Appleby, the third-round leader and Woods' playing partner Sunday, said with admiration. "He tried."

But this once, Woods didn't deliver.

He looked ready when his tee shot at 11 came to rest on pine straw under a tree on the right side of the fairway. There, Woods took a stance that ensured his follow-through would drive the shaft of the club squarely against the tree's trunk. He swung hard, anyway, bending the shaft so severely that he snapped it a moment later as easily as if it were a twig.

After a sensational par there, though, Woods had a brief twinge of regret when he bombed a drive around the corner at the par-5 13th and decided to go for the green in two.

"Ironically, on 13, it was the perfect club, that 4-iron. I had to hit a 5-iron as hard as I could over the creek and hook it back," he said. "It's not the shot you want to hit."

But he hit that one, too, and just like the recovery at No. 11, pulled it off. The approach landed a half-foot from the top edge of the 13th green, then trickled down to 3 feet. The ensuing eagle putt dropped Woods to 3-over and two strokes behind Johnson. Game on.

Anybody who had seen Woods hole an almost-impossible chip from behind the 16th green — the ball's logo even posed for a deep breath before falling into the cup — en route to another green jacket two years ago couldn't wait to see what was next. This time, though, most of them watched Woods coming down the stretch by sneaking peeks through the gaps in the fingers covering their eyes.

Johnson, though, couldn't bear to do even that much.

"I really wasn't looking at the leaderboard," he said afterward. "I left that up to Damon (Green), my caddie. I never really knew where I stood.

"I said, 'Damon, should I look? Should I look?' I didn't know until the 17th, and then I realized I just had to play solid and go from there."

Turns out Johnson could have peeked much earlier. After the 13th, Woods uncharacteristically ran out of magic.

He dunked a second shot at the par-5 15th and had to scramble to make par. He hit a 7-iron to 12 feet below the hole at the par-3 16th and missed that.

"It was difficult, very difficult," Woods said. "It was the hardest Masters I've ever seen, with the wind, the dryness, the speed of these things. I told a couple guys out here this week, 'I was glad I had metal spikes on, or I would have slipped on the greens, they were so slick.'"

Woods exited the clubhouse soon after, surrounded by his agent and four security guards, sipping a diet soda and carrying a new driver under his arm. He headed for the driving range and so strong is the legend that's grown up around Woods that a few people following him actually thought he was going to practice.

Instead, he used a back entrance to the players' parking lot, started up the car and drove down Magnolia Lane. There would be no more golf this day. This Masters was over, and with it went a piece of Tiger's aura of invincibility.

___

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org

Column: A dent in Tiger Woods' legend - Yahoo! News

__________________
For the Love of the Game,

Butz

Butz

Secret to beating Tiger: Don't beat self



By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer Mon Apr 9, 11:59 PM ET

AUGUSTA, Ga. - One was the greatest major champion of his era. The other was an unproven pro from Iowa. This wasn't Sunday at Augusta National. It was 1955 at The Olympic Club. In both cases, the feeling was it would be no contest.

"Most of them all thought Ben Hogan would be tough to beat," Jack Fleck said Sunday night. "No doubt about it."

In one of the most stunning upsets at a major, Fleck made birdie on the final hole at the
U.S. Open to force an 18-hole playoff with Hogan, who already had won four U.S. Opens among his nine majors and was perhaps the most feared player in golf.

Fleck wasn't the biggest hitter, but he was straight. He wasn't a great putter, but he could hit irons as if they were lasers. He didn't do anything fancy that Monday, but he came up with the right shots and let Hogan self-destruct in the rough. Fleck wound up shooting a 69 to win by three shots.

He is 85 now, living in Fort Smith, Ark., writing books and watching plenty of golf. You can be sure he was glued to his television set when Zach Johnson, a 31-year-old from Iowa, outplayed Tiger Woods on the back nine to capture the Masters.

Fleck only won two more times on the PGA Tour the rest of his career. Much more is expected of Johnson, who was the Nationwide Tour player of the year in 2003 and already has played on one
Ryder Cup team.

Woods was going after his third consecutive major, and he started the final round in the last group, only one shot behind Stuart Appleby. Johnson's only PGA Tour victory had come three years ago at the BellSouth Classic.

He was two shots back and just another name who figured to get run over.

And when Johnson three-putted for bogey from the front of the fifth green, Woods took the lead for the first time in the tournament, even thought it only lasted about 20 minutes. Still, Woods never loses when he's in front Sunday at a major.

"It looked like you could bet your money Tiger would win," Fleck said. "Who thought Zach would win?"

Johnson is not the longest hitter on an Augusta National course where only the guys who hit it a mile are supposed to win. He was 57th in driving distance out of the 60 players who made the cut. He gets by mainly on smarts, good iron play and putting.

And what helped him win the Masters was sticking to his strategy.

Johnson was in a four-way tie for the lead when he stood on the par-5 13th hole and hit one of his better drives, leaving him only 213 yards to the green. He never gave it a second thought.

Time to lay up.

"I had my limitations," Johnson said. "I didn't go for one par 5 in two the entire week, and I managed to make a lot of birdies on them. I was reading the greens well and putting well."

Johnson wound up with 11 birdies and five pars on those holes, the best performance of the week. The most impressive might have been a par on the 15th hole, after he again laid up. As he approached his wedge over the water to a back pin on a glassy green, Johnson heard an enormous roar from across the fairway to the 13th green.

"I assumed it was Tiger making an eagle," he said. "That was just an assumption."

Woods hammered a 5-iron over the creek and onto the green, where it rolled down a ridge to 3 feet.

Johnson took a breath.

"I wanted to make sure I had the right number with the right club," he said. "I hit an OK shot, nothing great, but I was able to give myself a chance at birdie."

He settled for par, then again let his putter do the work — and earn him some redemption — on the 16th with a 12-foot birdie that effectively allowed club officials to start looking for a 40-regular green jacket.

Victory was not secure until Johnson chipped across the 18th green to within inches to finish up a 69, and when Woods' approach into the 18th landed 20 feet from the hole. Woods would up two shots behind, along with Retief Goosen and Rory Sabbatini. Both had been in the lead longer than Woods, but neither packs his presence on a leaderboard.

The secret to beating Woods is not beating yourself. It worked for Rich Beem at Hazeltine, and for Michael Campbell at Pinehurst.

Instead of moving to within five majors of Jack Nicklaus' record 18 as a professional, Woods settled for his third runner-up finish at a major. He is now within 16 of Nicklaus' record 19 second-places.

It was a rare stumble for Woods, who might have lost this tournament Saturday with bogeys on the last two holes. That ultimately cost him the lead, and he has never lost with the 54-hole lead in a major. The difference Sunday came on two holes — Johnson made a 7-foot birdie on the 14th, Woods missed from 15 feet; Johnson holed an 8-foot birdie on No. 16, and Woods missed from 12 feet.

Fleck doesn't like to compare Hogan with Woods because of course conditions and equipment.

But there is no doubting the mystique.

"Tiger has an amazing record in the majors," said Vaughn Taylor, who played with Johnson. "It's nice to see him give one up."

Someone asked Taylor if Woods were Superman, what would that make Johnson?

"Superman's brother," he said.

Johnson wouldn't buy into that.

"I'm Zach Johnson, and I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa," he said. "That's about it. I'm a normal guy."

Sounds a lot like Fleck.

Two normal guys from Iowa who played their game.

One was good enough to beat Ben Hogan at the U.S. Open. The other was good enough to beat Tiger Woods at the Masters.

__________________
For the Love of the Game,

Butz