Weather Forecast: June Gloom

Tiger Woods romps (again) at Torrey Pines, leaving opponents without the foggiest notion of how to stop him at the U.S. Open

Catch me if you can: Woods closed with a 71 to salt away his 62nd PGA Tour win, equaling Palmer's total.

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By Bob Verdi

Photos By J.D. Cuban

February 15, 2008

For gentlemen of the PGA Tour, the good news is that Tiger Woods will be in Dubai this week. The bad news is that he will return. Woods never really abdicates the throne, even when he is absent from competition for three months, but on the chance that peers tried selective amnesia as an antidote for what they're up against, reality struck last Thursday morning at Torrey Pines GC. Woods made his season debut dressed in a sweater vest over a skin-tight thermal garment that accentuated muscularity worthy of a defensive back. One could only imagine what the lads on the practice green were thinking: "I couldn't beat this guy before ... what am I going to do now that his arms are bigger than my legs?"

The world's No. 1 golfer corroborated the obvious. "I'm stronger than ever," said Tiger, who clearly did not spend his vacation asking wife Elin to pass the bread. Whether Woods will be better than ever is the question, but rust is not. Save for occasional disobedience from his driver and three consecutive bogeys (!) on his closing nine after building a lead of 11 that approached the Super Bowl XLII point spread, this really would have been a walkover. As it is, Woods' windswept 71 Sunday -- his worst score during four days of botched weather forecasts -- sufficed for a 19-under 269 and an eight-shot Buick Invitational victory over Ryuji Imada. The triumph was his fourth in a row at this event and sixth overall at Tiger Pines. With it, Woods tied Arnold Palmer with 62 career titles. Tiger is 32. The King won his last at 43. Palmer issued a perfunctory statement of congratulations, but Tiger, who shares Arnold's gift of jab, suspects their exchange will be saltier when they next meet.

Ever since Woods mentioned on his website that a 2008 Grand Slam is a swell idea, he has been dropping pearls to indicate the level of satisfaction he has about his game. Last week, the bon mots included, "I'm hitting shots that I couldn't hit in 2000," and "my good years are still ahead of me." Woods does not wear these warnings on his biceps. Rather, they invariably are responses to inquiries. Remember he is also his severest critic this side of Jim Brown. But Woods likes where he's headed beyond Dubai, slam rhymes with Sam, the name of his beloved infant daughter, and even Hank Haney, Woods' sultan of swing, is dispensing clues. "Usually, after Christmas, Tiger goes looking for some snow," Haney related. "This year, no snow. No skiing. Practice."

After Woods' seminar of 66 Saturday, his 14th straight PGA Tour round of 67 or better, Justin Leonard served succinctly as group spokesman. "There are two tournaments going on," he announced. "I'm going to try to win the tournament that Tiger Woods isn't playing in." Woods promptly opened the final round with a bomb for birdie on No. 1, made a ridiculously brilliant exit from a bog behind the ninth green to save par, then canned a back-to-the-target 60-footer with a 15-foot right-to-left downhill break on No. 11. That was for birdie, and that was so sick it needed a note from the doctor. He wobbled on Nos. 14 through 16 for those three eyesores on a card that bore only two other squares for the week. Probed about his last pratfall of such an epic nature, Woods gladly dived into his self-deprecation mode by resurrecting how he closed Palmer's Bay Hill shindig last March: bogey, double bogey, triple bogey for 43. "I was worried," quipped Woods, "when I played my next event, Doral, hoping I didn't make quad on the first hole."

Once again, the tour's new 36-hole cut rule was invoked. By dusk Friday, 85 players were at one-over-par 145, but as per the legislation, the field was reduced to the number closest to 70. That was 66, meaning 19 golfers were awarded $9,880 and 47 FedEx Cup points each before leaving. The paring process makes sense with limited daylight and early West Coast signoffs for eastern TV zones (Woods' Sunday threesome still consumed four hours, 58 minutes) but several players in that plus-one bracket expressed annoyance at the situation and one gets the drift that this restlessness in the ranks is not going to vanish. Woods had an oft-uttered solution: "Play better." Still, the guys on the outside looking in are stewing. But life isn't fair, and you can't have everything, can you? Four wounded Iraq War veterans were brought in Friday as honorary announcers. Each of them was missing at least one arm or one leg. None complained about serving his country.