Tiger walks away with his head held high

THE Grand Slam dream may be over for another year but Tiger Woods left Muirfield last night with his head high.

He tried on every shot over the weekend, even when he knew Saturday’s storm destroyed his chances of a third major this season.

“I didn’t bag it,” he said. And as if to prove the point yesterday he went out in more favourable conditions and made light of a bogey at the 378-yard third to hit back with five birdies and an eagle for a best-of-the-championship 65.

Tiger’s 81 on Saturday represented his worst-ever competitive round, the previous high being a 79 at the Australian Club in Sydney where he eventually finished in a share of fifth with Ireland’s Paul McGinley.

He added, without mentioning Royal Co Down as the scene of his embarrassment, that he “shot 83 last year which was the low round in the group. It was brutal, it was blowing about 40, 50 miles an hour. I hit a two iron from 150 yards and didn’t get there, it was blowing that hard,”

Pride is one of Tiger’s more notable characteristics and was very much to the fore over the past couple of days. His goal, he said, was to get to even or under par and that would make it a very successful tournament for him and he was pleased to have done that.

“I kept grinding it out and thank God I did because it could have been a really high number,” he said. Just how tough it was out there on Saturday is graphically demonstrated by the fact Mark O’Meara, Woods’s playing partner, hit a three iron to the 191-yard 13th and Tiger himself “ripped a four iron” and didn’t get there. Should they have halted play at the height of the storm, when players were being blown over and balls ballooned all over the place?

The usual criterion is play will continue if: a) the greens don’t become waterlogged, and b) the balls don’t oscillate on the putting surfaces. Neither of these things happened. Woods was only one of those blown out of

contention and neither he nor any of the others complained, at least not in public.

When asked yesterday if the British summer had put him off the Championship for future years, Tiger said: “Certainly not. This is the Open Championship. This is the oldest championship in our sport, one that all the players respect and have a great deal of admiration for. It is always fun to come here and play. Saturday was just one of those fluke days, a brutal day for all of us. Now I will just wait for O’Meara to finish and get out of here. The slam is gone. I am finished. I am going home to put on some shorts and a T-shirt and walk outside.”

It will be argued at bar counters and coffee houses over the next few days whether Tiger’s failure to pull off the slam is a good or bad thing for golf.

Some believe his profile as sport’s most recognisable personality and most successful practitioner have provided golf with positive publicity. Others say Woods’s supremacy has become boring and tournaments he contests are too predictable. Every time he tees off, they say, he wins.

Well, not quite so, even if it took Saturday’s storm at Muirfield to blow him out of the Open. For once, he was on the wrong side of the weather which helped him enormously at Bethpage in last month’s US Open, in April’s Masters at Augusta and in the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach when he won by 15 strokes. The swings and roundabouts caught up with him this time.

But he wasn’t bitter: “Two major wins make it a great year for me no matter what else happens. I think sometimes the media and everybody tend to lose perspective on how difficult it is to win a major. Any time you win one, it is a successful year.”

Few would argue with that and the level of expectation placed in him to pull off the slam was way over the top.

I firmly believe the Grand Slam is impossible. Not even a player of Woods’s unbelievable ability can do it, although you suspect the majority of fans at the Open would love to see him succeed

“All the way around, they were extremely respectful and gracious, not just to me but all the players,” he said. “As I have always said, these are the most knowledgeable fans in the world and they proved that again this week.”