Tiger Woods ready to pounce in warm Open conditions - 'I just need to play cleaner golf, and who knows?'
Whenever Tiger Woods smiles at a press conference, a hundred cameras with lightning shutter speeds start clicking frenziedly, like a swarm of angry cicadas. It happened more than once here at Carnoustie on Tuesday, as Woods, warming to themes as diverse as two-iron hybrids and Californian grass varieties, let his usual mask of sternness slip. He looked mellow, happy, at ease. The contrast with the mug-shot on file at Jupiter Police Department, showing him haunted and disorientated after his arrest last year for driving under the influence of prescription drugs, could hardly have been more jarring.
All this beaming was not just for the photographers’ benefit. While few would count him among the favourites to win his 15th major this week, Woods has ample cause to be cheerful, from the piecemeal progress of his game to his liberation from a world of back pain. He might lack the aura that he projected at his pomp in 2005, when he pitched up with a phalanx of security guards in matching polo-shirts, but he is at last offering a few rays of human warmth. For once, he exuded relish at simply being in the tournament. “There were points when I thought I would never be in this championship again,” he said.
For years, Woods treated his aloofness almost as a professional necessity. One revelation in a recent biography by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian was that his mother, Kutilda, helped shape such a mindset. “You have to go for the throat,” she allegedly told him, “because if all friendly, they come back and beat your ass. So you kill them. Take their heart.” On occasion, he slips back into heart-ripping mode. Only this week, a video has emerged on social media, from a recent charity event in Las Vegas, of him telling any rivals intimidated by him: “That’s your f------ issue.”
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But on his return to a stage he has not graced for three years, Woods redoubled the charm offensive. He has a steady girlfriend again ‒ Erica Herman, the general manager of the Florida restaurant he owns ‒ and there is talk she will be joining him on the Angus coast later in the week. Of all the Open venues, Carnoustie is a place where Woods feels comfortable. Although he lacks any great pedigree here, having finished joint seventh in 1999 and tied for 12th in 2007, it was this course that cemented his love affair with links golf.
As a 19-year-old amateur in the 1995 Scottish Open, Woods would spend the long summer evenings with his father Earl on the range, learning how to deal with all the vagaries Carnoustie could conjure. “I remember my dad asking, ‘Are you ever going to hit the ball beyond the 100-yard sign?’” he said. “I told him, ‘No, I’m just enjoying this.’ I grew up in Southern California, where it’s all kikuyu grass and nothing rolls. So, I thought it was just the best to see the ball bounce, a course where I could be creative and use my mind.”
The received wisdom is that the Open represents Woods’ best chance left of a major, after a decade-long drought without one. Of late, it has been the kindest to forty-somethings, with Phil Mickelson, Darren Clarke and Ernie Els all winning well into their fifth decade. But this theory presumes that Woods, at 42, is struggling to keep pace with the musclebound young pretenders, when the evidence suggests quite the contrary. Despite surgery to fuse vertebrae in his back, Woods has somehow found a way to increase his clubhead speed, hitting one of his three-irons in a practice round here an eye-watering 333 yards.
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This owes much, of course, to the summer heat that has left Carnoustie’s fairways as arid as the Atacama. Just how Woods likes it, then. Famously, in 2006, he sealed victory at a hard-baked Hoylake despite not reaching for the driver once all week. There has seldom been a golfer to rival him for strategic intelligence, and he has already packed a bespoke two-iron in his bag to help him flight the ball low, for maximum distance. Where Rory McIlroy believes he can conquer the course with monstrous power off the tee, Woods prefers to tackle the challenge with a surgeon’s precision. “It can get quick,” he said. “I’m not going to hit that many long clubs off the tees.”
Be in no doubt how seriously Woods is taking this test. Previously at the Open, he has dipped in for a few practice holes here and there, rising before the lark to avoid the crowds, but this year he has made a point of playing a full 18. Having finished fourth at his last appearance in Washington, three weeks ago, he is optimistic about how he can perform. “I feel like I have a better understanding of my game, my body and my swing, much more than I did at Augusta,” he said. “I’ve put myself up there in contention a couple of times. I just need to play some cleaner golf, and who knows?”
Back when he could barely walk, Woods had a line for his new-found state of mind. “Everything beyond this,” he declared, “will be gravy.” These days, the ferocious champion fixated on winning has morphed into a man thankful just to turn up. While the Tiger remains on the prowl, his claws, one senses, have lost their sharpness.
