Taming of Tiger: a whole new ball game?

AUGUSTA, and its many hazards, is one of the least daunting prospects facing former champion Tiger Woods these days.

Or at least that is what a sizeable section of the press corps would have you believe of the eve of the game's greatest tournament.

His forthcoming marriage to Jesper Parnevik's former nanny Elin Nordegrin is garnering more and more column inches, all wondering if their nuptials will have a further debilitating effect on a game that is not in the best of shape?

Only time will tell. But the man himself can't really complain if this matter raises its head more and more. After all, it was his father Earl Woods who offered this little gem three years ago: "Let's face it, a wife can be a deterrent to a good golf game. The level Tiger's at, finite problems like that would destroy him".

More than a little over the top, of course, although Woods senior could attribute Tiger's current problems to the fact that he started going with Elin less than a year after dad uttered those fateful words. They got engaged on a game reserve in South Africa after last November's President's Cup.

If a wedding date has been set, it remains a secret although it's a virtual certainty they will tie the knot before Earl's suggested target age of 30. Tiger is 28. Father and son, it is hinted, are not as close as they used to be and it just might have something to do with the marital issue.

"I've lived with Elin for over two years now," Tiger asserts. "Nothing's changed whether you're married or not. The biggest changes will probably come when you have kids. It's a big change in your life and it will be a challenge for me."

Even the top US players have become absorbed by the situation.

Ryder Cup captain Hal Sutton well knows the difficulties of trying to combine life on tour with a happy domestic arrangement.

"It's a lot of responsibility being a husband and a daddy," said Sutton, now on his fourth marriage.

"However, I admire how Tiger has handled a lot of other distractions in his life. I'd be hard pressed to say he wouldn't handle fatherhood like a star as well. I think he's just got a good grip on everything," he said.

Ernie Els, who withdrew from the World Match Play Championship in California in February so that he could be in London for his daughter's first day at school, agrees.

"He's going to have a great time because that's what life is all about," says the South African. "Golf is a game we take very seriously at times but there's a lot more to life than golf."

Charles Howell, one of the younger married members of the US tour sees things very much in that light: "People forget that Tiger has dated Elin for a very long time and he dated other people for a very long time.

"People love to criticise him in one way or another. We live in a very American society where people build you up and then try everything to knock you down. It will have absolutely no effect on him at all. My wife Martha and I have become friendly with Tiger and Elin and feel all this discussion about them is amusing," he said.

Psychologist Giovanni Valiente, who works with Chad Campbell, Davis Love III and David Duval, also lent his professional advice.

"You can do one of two things," he says. "You can either undermine motivation, where you're content and have a great family like Fred Couples, and all of a sudden you think, 'why am I playing? I don't need the money and I'm enjoying the hell out of my kids'.

"Or it can enhance the motivation and go 'now I want to play for my wife and kids because I want them to see me play well'."

Jack Nicklaus certainly shares the latter option. The six-times Masters champion lamented that his own father never saw him play his best golf and he was determined not to repeat that mistake with wife Barbara and his sons.

The Golden Bear, not one noted for modesty, said that: "I turned pro with several guys who had as much talent as me but I was the only one married.

"I probably had more of a focus on the more mature part of life, on my wife and kids. I got into that early and I think I learned to win early."

As Valiente points out: "It's like being married to the military. The job's first and wives have to know that coming in.

"If they don't understand that, it can get very ugly very quick."

But Tiger has an answer for that. "Being with the right person makes things better," he declared.

"It makes life much easier, and you look forward to things. So from that aspect, I'm very lucky. Very lucky," he said with a knowing smile.