TW All By Himself

Here's a scary thought for his competition: Tiger's getting better

The State of Tiger: This is Jaime Diaz's sixth annual assessment of Tiger Woods' year, and career, in golf. For previous installments, see the related links box below.

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By Jaime Diaz

Photos By Stephen Szurlej

January 2007

Rather than Mike Douglas, this time the daytime talk-show host was Ellen DeGeneres. But 28 years later, there was another cramped television studio fitted with a makeshift tee and a net, and another adoring audience charmed by the guest, Tiger Woods. Although dressed in fashionably torn jeans and an untucked shirt, Woods stayed safely buttoned-down, firmly finessing his way out of a plea from the dance-happy DeGeneres (thus avoiding a clip that would outlive even his record of 142 consecutive made cuts). It was the same instinct for self-preservation that as a 2-year-old on the Douglas show compelled him to take one look at a five-foot putt over creased AstroTurf and hand-mashie it into a tap-in.

By contrast, Woods didn't waver when handed a driver with the task of hitting a ball through a 12-inch-wide opening in the net 20 feet away. First his face transformed into its familiar Zen mask as he took some practice swings. "I had to adjust to hit it higher than normal," Woods explained later. Then, with a motion that has become a perfect medley of right angles and parallel lines, he produced a hyper-speed swish.

The audience erupted. DeGeneres, normally glib, was speechless. The impossible physics of seeing any professional golfer -- never mind the best one -- smash a ball close up with such precision is always stunning, of course. But there was also the thrill of witnessing the master of getting it done getting it done yet again, an athlete so accomplished that he has become the world's leading exemplar of excellence.

Tiger Woods -- living icon -- is back. He had stood on that narrowest of pinnacles back in 2000 and 2001 before slipping off for a few years in pursuit of technical perfection. But by finishing 2006 with a rush toward the epic landmarks of Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson while rising ever higher above his contemporaries, Woods enters 2007 loaded for history. He carries a streak of six straight official victories -- the second time he has achieved the second-longest tour string of wins -- but this time with a more palpable sense that Nelson's 11 straight is actually attainable. Woods will also go into the Masters having won the last two majors, halfway to his second Tiger Slam. If he achieves that, he could do things that have never been done.

Only tennis' Roger Federer among athletes today can rival Woods in dominating and personifying his sport. But whereas Federer confessed he became nervous when Woods showed up last September to watch him in the final of the U.S. Open, it's impossible to envision Woods being nervous in front of Federer, or anybody else. He's simply too wrapped up in a higher calling.

"No one's ever conquered the game of golf," sums up his friend Michael Jordan, the one living sports icon who knows the same rare air as Woods. "He thinks he can conquer it."

Woods arguably came closer than ever in 2006. Ten days before his appearance with DeGeneres, he played in his last official tournament of the year, the WGC-American Express outside of London, and won by eight shots for his eighth victory of the season. Then, drained from his most emotional year and a late run that included a dispiriting Ryder Cup, Woods passed on playing the eight more official rounds he needed to win his seventh Vardon Trophy scoring title and instead took his mountain of chips off the table and walked away. It left his opponents to think about what awaits them in 2007 and beyond.

"I'm sure Tiger will keep getting better," says U.S. Open winner Geoff Ogilvy. "It really doesn't matter what he's working on in his swing or whatever. It just distracts us from the fact that he's always been the best. The level he achieved in 2000 was ridiculous, and after he won at Bethpage in 2002 he must have thought, What am I going to work on now? Tiger needs to have a project, he needs to have a mission. And his mission at the moment is mastering his latest changes. He's doing that, and he'll probably win 10 times in the next year. And then he'll find a new mission."

Adds Jim Furyk, the No. 2 player in the world: "He seems more capable than ever of doing what he wants to with the ball: high, low, draw, cut, whatever. But what impresses me the most is that in a pressure situation, he'll pull those shots off with total calm, like he's out there practicing."

Woods' 12 professional major victories have come in only 40 tries as a pro, an off-the-charts 30-percent conversion pace that would allow him to catch Nicklaus' 18 at the 2011 PGA Championship. And Woods completed his 10th full year as a professional with 54 victories in only 200 starts, putting Snead's career-record 82 official victories, heretofore a distant goal, in reach.

The sum total is a powerfully visceral consensus that -- very quickly -- Woods has become so good that he doesn't have to do anything extraordinary to win. His new "normal" golf is enough.

With the clubs other than the still-too-frequently-sprayed driver and the occasionally inconsistent putter, there is no question that Woods has achieved control of the ball like never before. Now in his 30s, traditionally prime for nearly every great player before him, Woods is swinging better and thinking better. Whereas his epic 2000 season seemed destined to be the period any of his subsequent golf would be measured against, it suddenly seems unreasonable to assume that Woods reached his peak at age 24. And though most observers have taken a prudent wait-and-see attitude toward his prospects of surpassing Nicklaus' career marks, most now consider Woods a lock barring something unfortunate. There's a growing feeling that not only is Woods better than Nicklaus ever was, but that every important record in history -- including the Grand Slam -- is in play.

"Tiger reached a new level at Hoylake," says Nicklaus. "He controlled the ball beautifully and showed great maturity in his management. His short game and putting continue to be amazing. I kept improving into my 30s, and I expect Tiger is going to do the same. Will he break my record? It certainly looks like he will."

Although Woods opened 2006 by winning at Torrey Pines, then at Dubai and Doral, attending to his father's worsening health since late 2005 took a toll. With Earl Woods in his final days, Tiger had pushed -- surely too hard -- at Augusta, three-putting six times to finish three strokes behind Phil Mickelson. "That's why not winning the Masters hurt so bad, more than any tournament ever," he says. "Because I knew it would be my dad's last."

With the loss came the cessation of the momentum Woods had built with his career-turning and swing-change-validating victories at the 2005 Masters and British Open. Mickelson's triumph was his second Masters in three years and his second straight major after the 2005 PGA. Even more than Vijay Singh in 2004, Lefty -- especially when Woods was helping him on with the green jacket -- was starting to look like Tiger's equal.