Unimaginable U.S. Open win a peek into Tiger's will
By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer
What will you remember about the 2008 season? That was the simple question we asked PGATOUR.COM staffers and freelance contributors, who responded with a series of short essays that we will post during November (click here for the archive link).
I wasn't yet born when Ben Hogan returned from a near-fatal car accident to win the 1950 U.S. Open at Merion, or when Ken Venturi survived heat exhaustion on a 36-hole, 100-degree day to win the 1964 U.S. Open at Congressional.
The three greatest moments of athletic on-field heroism I'd witnessed were: A one-legged Kirk Gibson hitting a game-winning home run off Dennis Eckersley in the first game of the 1988 World Series; flu-stricken Michael Jordan scoring 38 points in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz; and Pete Sampras overcoming dehydration and vomiting to win a four-hour, five-set marathon over Alex Corretja in the quarterfinals of the 1996 U.S. Open.
What Tiger Woods did at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines this year tops them all. What I remember most about Tiger's 14th career major championship win was the sheer and absolute pain you could see in his face with almost every swing, especially the driver. Swing after swing, grimace after grimace, you wondered not if he was about to fall to the ground but when.
Imagine Gibson having to take 18 swings, or Jordan or Sampras playing four straight games in their weakened condition. That's what Tiger did, except he did it over five days, 91 holes and 358 strokes with a torn ACL in his left knee. He'd later say it only bothered him immediately after he'd swing. His walk, crippled by a severe limp all week, told us something different. So did his eyes. So did the doctors when it was announced not long after the final winning putt that Tiger would have season-ending surgery.
It's rare you get a peek at Tiger's soul. But the pain and agony behind each swing was screaming out through grimaces, grunts and grit teeth. In fact, it was more than a peek; it was a window to his will.
Forgetting the injury when you could -- mostly only when Tiger was putting -- the golf Tiger played was the stuff books are written about. He arrived at Torrey not having played in two months because of surgery on the same knee. Yet his first three days included, among other things, a back-nine 30 on Friday and a pair of eagles on Saturday.
On that Sunday, Tiger made it to the 72nd hole needing a birdie to force a playoff with the affable yet pesky Rocco Mediate. Standing between Woods and that playoff was a tricky 12-foot putt. I thought maybe there is something that can finally beat Tiger: Injury. I thought, "What if Tiger misses this?"
Of course the putt tumbled in on the back corner, and Tiger had another one of those Tiger moments. His knee didn't look so hurt now, I thought, as he pumped his fist. Pain is funny like that.
A day later, Tiger was still badly hobbled, and he'd trade the lead with Mediate three times on the front nine before forging a three-stroke lead with eight holes to play. Inexplicably, he'd blow it, needing to birdie the 18th again -- this time to force sudden death. I remember again thinking "What if Tiger misses this?"
Yeah, what if.
Brian Wacker, a PGATOUR.COM Site Producer, once played 18 holes with a nasty paper cut on his right index finger.
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