Tiger on the prowl again

By Al S. Mendoza

GOLF is so difficult a game that we rarely see a player winning a tournament two successive years.

Seemingly, in other sports, winning titles back-to-back is chicken feed.

Remember Lance Armstrong’s seven straight Tour de France cycling titles, if not Michael Schumacher’s similar seven Formula One racing crowns?

And how about those three straight NBA rings for the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls in the ’90s, and the similar three straight NBA championship diadems for  the Los Angeles Lakers led by  Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in this decade?

Boxers seem to easily string together championship victories. 

How many world boxing champions have successfully defended their titles a lot of times, if not numerous times? 

You can’t count them with your fingers, anymore.

There’s even one guy, Rocky Marciano, who retired undefeated as a world heavyweight champion after piling up 41 straight victories

How many Olympic gold medals in basketball has America pocketed successively?

I’ve lost count already.

But in golf, the hardest is to defend one’s crown successfully.

Thus, when Tiger Woods won the recent British Open, it added more lore to his growing legend as the greatest golfer of all time.

For winning his second straight British Open title last Monday, Woods became only the second man to do it back-to-back in the 135-year history of the tournament. The first to do it was Tom Watson in 1982-1983.

It was also his third victory in the oldest major of golf but more than that, it moved Woods to a second-place tie with the now-gone Walter Hagen in the most number of majors won: 11.

As a result, Woods was now just seven titles short of the record 18 majors held by Jack Nicklaus.

And eclipsing Nicklaus’ record isn’t only attainable, it can happen in a shorter span of time than some people think.

For one, Woods is only 30 years old.  There is absolutely a lot of golf left in him.

For another, the next   nine majors to be contested will happen in the next two years, beginning with the PGA Championship in three to five weeks time.

After failing to defend his Masters title in April by finishing tied for third and suffering his first cut in a major in the U.S. Open last month, Woods has strongly bounced back by winning the British Open a third time in six years.

Admitting he pushed too hard in trying to win the Masters “because that would have been the last major my Dad had seen me winning it,” Woods missed the cut in the U.S. Open as the death of his Dad, Earl, of cancer on May 3 hounded him no end.

But with his awesome win in the British Open, it appeared obvious Woods has come to grips with reality.

In winning the British Open, Woods turned back every challenge thrown his way using an iron will and solid shot-making at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England, that fast, firm and crusty links course etched in the city that produced The Beatles.

After he had tapped in his last putt on his 72nd hole for a 67 to win by two strokes over Chris DiMarco (his own mother died after a heart attack only last July 4), he let out his bottled up emotions for a week with a thunderous “Yes!” and next sobbed uncontrollably on the shoulder of his caddy from New Zealand, Steve Williams, while still on the 18th green.

Woods cried again on the arms of his wife, Elin, next kissed her and then signed for a 5-under-par scorecard that capped a glorious 18-under-par 270, a shot shy of his own Open record set at St. Andrews in 2000.

“I miss my Dad so much and I wish he was here to watch this,” he said. “To win my first tournament this early after my father had passed away – and for it to be a major championship at that – it makes it that much more special.”

Woods learned golf at the age of two from his father, a former Green Beret officer in Vietnam.

 If Woods, 30, doesn’t equal, if not surpass, Nicklaus’ 18 majors before he turns 35, either something terrible happened to his anatomy, or he has quit the game.

Even Nicklaus himself has said it so, saying: “No one can stop this kid from breaking my record.”

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CONGRATULATIONS TO the Sunday PUNCH on its 50th year of founding. Special mention goes to Ermin Garcia Jr., the newspaper’s body and soul. Without Ermin’s steely nerves, iron will and big fighting heart, this newspaper might have easily floundered following the assassination of Ermin’s Dad 10 years after the first copy of the PUNCH had rolled out of the press. It is my wish that the PUNCH would continue to grow even stronger, tougher and more resilient in the next 50 years!

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