Tame Tiger not burning bright

SOONER or later, Tiger will just have to own up — things ain’t what they used to be.

This point was never more graphically demonstrated than in the 104th US Open Championship that came to an end here last night with the leaderboard dominated by his fellow Americans, Australians, Japanese, Canadians and Spaniards but not a sign of the world number one.

Even his greatest admirers and most loyal apologists are forced to admit that Woods has lost his lustre on and off the course. As always, he is courteous and articulate at his press conferences in truth, though, they are bland and uninformative, full of pious platitudes and pleas that I'm "close" to this and "close" to that.

As far as public perception goes, he has lost out big time in the popularity stakes to his fellow Californian Phil Mickelson, especially here in New York.

Rounds of 72, 69 and 73 on this nightmarishly difficult golf course might not have been too bad in themselves through the opening three days, even if he did need to dramatically hole his approach shot to the 18th on Saturday for an eagle two to maintain a degree of respectability reflecting his position as world number one.

Those who believed this was the beginning of a major Woods assault on the course and his opponents were quickly disabused of the idea yesterday when bogeys at the 3rd and 8th and a double at the 9th saw him out in four over 39. Another bogey followed at the 10th and no matter how hard he tried and few earn as many credit marks as Woods in this respect the major drought continued.

He has been stuck on eight since this championship up the road at Bethpage Park in 2002 and Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 looks safer than ever.

It's not just his estranged coach Butch Harmon who has been talking Woods down. He, no doubt, feels he has his own good reasons for that. But when Nick Price, one of the nicest and fairest of individuals, joins in, even Tiger himself should sit up and take notice. "There's something wrong with his swing," said Price yesterday.

"This is the first time we've seen him missing fairways with an iron off the tee. Until he starts hitting fairways, I don't think he's going to do any better. He can't keep doing this. It's not one shot that's wrong. He hitting a big hook and blocking it, too."

Tiger would also need to keep a sharper eye on his caddy Steve Williams who yesterday snatched a camera out of a photographer's hands on the second tee. It got so bad that David Fay of the USGA issued a statement describing it as "a tense situation but I've instructed the rules officials with the group to speak with Steve and if there's an issue, he should bring it to their attention.

"Let security deal with these issues. It doesn't help Tiger, it doesn't help Steve, it doesn't help the championship. Just as the professional golfers should be dealing with the golf shots, professional security should be dealing with incidents because it could get ugly."

Tiger and his caddy were far from the only ones under scrutiny as the Open drew to its dramatic conclusion in yesterday's glorious Long Island sunshine. The European members of the media centre were caustic about the failure of their players to make the slightest impression (Sergio Garcia, six over through the 11th and nine off the lead at that point, was best) although Bernhard Langer's vice captain Joakim Haeggman tried to make light of the situation.

"They can't set the course up like this for the Ryder Cup and even if they do, it's matchplay, and that is so different," he said. "I thought we would do a little better but it's such a tough week and such a long way away from what we normally play. Even Birkdale looks like a nice afternoon walk compared with this. It's so hard out there. Even a little wedge to the green is tough."

Then there was the failure of the USGA to see what was coming at holes like the 7th, 10th and 18th, to name but three.

The slopes were so severe on these and other greens that there were several grisly tales of players actually putting off them into bunkers or miles down the severe slopes on all sides.

Two to suffer most were Kevin Stadler and JJ Henry in the very first match of the day. They and the two groups immediately behind were allowed to tackle the 7th, where both took triple bogey 6s, before the officials ordered that the putting surface and surrounds should be watered. This brought howls of protest from the players.

The horror stories rolled in. Joakim Haeggman, one of the stars of the European Tour this year, putted from the back of the 10th green only to see his ball roll and roll until it finished up 60 yards away on the other side. He finished up with a nine.

But spare a thought for Stadler junior and Henry, both of whom had completed nine holes before any help was forthcoming.