Woods, putting at the 17th Sunday, had a perfect mix of power and creativity.
No wonder it has so often taken a big player, physically and mentally, to win there. Langer, who tied for fifth, knows how often physical power can sometimes negate the otherwise capriciously firm conditions, and he saw it again in Woods.
"The course suits the long hitter and probably somebody who spins the ball a lot, too," said Langer, whose Sunday run was undone when he chili-dipped a short pitch into a pot bunker on the 15th. "Tiger has the option to stop the ball extremely quick, which you need on some of these greens which slope away from you and the wind going with you. I think it's his short game that is the major key. He putts very well, chips well, has good imagination. It's the right combination around here."
But St. Andrews runs too fast and is too fraught with danger to simply be overpowered. Brawn has to be tempered with brain in terms of judgment, nerve and improvisation. Because each shot along the bouncy hollows is unique, no one gets dialed in at the Old Course. "So many intricacies, you never really understand it," said Baker-Finch. "It demands art, not science." And to Thomson's mind, it's the reason the course so consistently identifies greatness. "Every [golfer] who has ever won at St. Andrews has been a good thinker," he said. "That's all I ever really had as a player. Tiger in particular is a wonderful thinker. He just has a brilliant golfing brain."
Of course, St. Andrews has the ultimate advantage in getting the benefit of the doubt. Sure it's awkward, bouncy and blind, but the quirkiness is somehow endearing. We will forgive it almost anything, because after all it is the original course. The sheer fun of it, and why it's so many players' favorite, is that it just is. "Any course I've played in my life, I've never hit it over a building," said Kenny Perry. "But it's OK." Or as Woods himself said after playing St. Andrews for the first time 1995, "I thought it was the coolest place on earth."
And judging by 2005, a place that will hold more magical Opens.
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