The Picture of Health

On the practice range at Muirfield Village GC about noon before the final round, Tiger Woods discussed the plan. Under normal circumstances, after 18 holes he would rush toward that private plane well before nightfall and be home in time to watch his beloved Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of the NBA finals. "I'll at least catch the second half," reasoned Woods, "unless something happens." Something like a playoff surely would have destroyed his itinerary because basketball will not wait. So Tiger strategically broke loose from a four-way tie by banging the gavel on his final-round symposium with a birdie putt from nine feet on No. 17 and a tap-in birdie from 14 inches on No. 18 to shoot 65 for 12-under 276 and win the Memorial by one stroke.

Do we dare use "normal" and Tiger Woods in the same paragraph? This victory was his 67th, and he's only 33. That's an average of more than two trophies a year since he was born—perhaps enough material to sedate recent critics, a few of whom have gone the extra mile and actually watched him play! You've heard all the theories. Tiger is too muscle-bound. He's favoring his right leg. No, it's the left leg that will never be the same. Tiger is watching too much hoops. He misses Buick. He's becoming too fatherly. Hank Haney is spending too much time with Charles Barkley. In reality, Tiger Woods is sick. He's so good, it's sick.

Analyze this. Woods hit 49 of 56 fairways in regulation over four gloriously dry days—matching his career-best radar at the 1998 Masters—and he missed absolutely none Sunday, when the turf was only becoming firmer by the hour. Tournament host Jack Nicklaus—a high-pitched voice of genuine authority amid the wilderness of spam—sent up a warning earlier in the week if anybody was listening, then punctuated it at the award ceremony. Tiger seems rather healthy now, suggested the Golden Bear, and if he drives the ball this way at the U.S. Open, watch out.

Then there was Michael Letzig, Woods' sidekick in the fourth-to-last twosome. They were four swings off the 54-hole lead shared by Matt Bettencourt and Mark Wilson. To say Tiger ran over a number of world-class foes and really nice guys is to say Letzig left the premises quite dazzled, as if he witnessed a flying saucer. "Unreal," gushed Letzig, who took 75 blows. "I was trying to pay attention to what I was doing and not watch him, but that's pretty hard. That's the best golf I've ever seen. Incredible irons. People have been writing that Tiger Woods isn't striking the ball well?" Letzig revealed that there wasn't much banter, save for his repeated, unoriginal small talk: "Good shot. Good shot. Good shot."

Low mortal in Woods' fourth Memorial conquest was Jim Furyk (see page 40), a grizzled veteran who has attended this movie often. "Nothing Tiger does surprises me," said Furyk after his 69 for an 11-under 277. "To hit it that close on those last two holes, where the pins were … that's what he does better than anybody else out here." Furyk rued a missed birdie putt at No. 15 and a bogey at No. 9, where he heard a noise during his backswing. Furyk scolded a member of the CBS field staff, then with typical class made amends later. "I was more mad at me than him, because I made bogey there," said Furyk. "I could have and should have handled it better." His 21st runner-up in 400 trips to the post was solidified with a birdie at the last while Jonathan Byrd and Davis Love III—who once were among the quartet of co-leaders—doubled and tripled there, respectively.

A couple hours earlier, Byrd had stood on the No. 10 tee, hard by the clubhouse, leading the tournament at 11 under par. But he heard thunder in the distance, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Woods had authored a miraculous eagle with a 44-foot, one-handed chip-in from behind the par-5 11th to move within a shot. "It was a nasty little lie there," Woods recalled. "I cut a 5-wood in there, flushed it, and thought it was going to land in the middle of the green and maybe go up the slope and come back down. I was trying to get the blade working underneath the ball as fast as I possibly could. The right hand just happened to come off the club." And the ball just happened to disappear into the cup.

It should be noted that Woods' nasty little lie there would have been a lot nastier last year, when Nicklaus nobly admitted "a lot of the problems here were caused by me." The rough behind No. 11 was so imposing one June ago that Phil Mickelson, faced with a similar task after his ball bounded through the green in two, couldn't hold his third on the green. He declined this year's invitation, months before wife Amy took ill with breast cancer. "We let the guys play this year," said Steve Rintoul, the tour's advance man for the Memorial. "Last year it was a bit much."