Major difference

Tiger Woods has lost his mojo -- and his mastery

He once made grown men cry -- or at least tremble at the mere sight of his name anywhere within a 6-iron of the top of the leaderboard on a Saturday or a Sunday. No more. Tiger Woods is no longer The Intimidator.

Time was, Woods was still in the hunt even when he was four, five or even six strokes off the lead. This was partly due to his magical gifts, but also because the rest of the field knew he was still in the hunt and played as if they were all shooting for second place. It's hard to swing a club when your knees are knocking and you're looking back over your shoulder.

Woods has, quite frankly, lost his mojo. Some perspective is required here: Even as he plays while recovering from offseason knee surgery, toils with "inferior" equipment (as pointed out by his friend Phil Mickelson in a magazine story this past March), and battles a bar raised ridiculously high by his own incomparable performances, Woods is still the man to beat in any tournament he enters. He remains still a leading money winner and a consistent Player of the Year contender, if not favorite, with four wins and eight top 10 finishes. No other PGA player dares describe Woods -- on the record, at least -- as anything other than the best player in the world, lest they stir the slumbering beast. And yet, none of them is quaking any more. No one is looking over his shoulder. Now, Tiger Woods is beatable, and every player on the Tour knows it.

His aura of invincibility was first chipped a year ago when Rich Beem, a journeyman pro, held off a charging Woods on the final day to win the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club. Beem, leading Woods by only a stroke, showed no fear (or no brains, depending on whom you asked at the time) by pulling out a 3-wood for his second shot on the 597-yard par-5 No. 11 and nailing it 271 yards to within six feet of the cup. He buried the putt to take a three-stroke lead. He finished a stroke ahead of Woods, who birdied 15, 16, 17 and 18.

Beem's effort might have seemed, at the time, like an aberration, but it has since become the norm. In April, at the Masters, little-known Canadian left-hander Mike Weir strode while Woods stumbled on Sunday, beating the three-time winner of the green jacket to earn his first career major. Woods finished 15th, shooting 75 on Sunday. Two months later, Jim Furyk won his first major by capturing the U.S. Open, where Woods finished 20th, shooting 72 on Sunday.

Last month, Woods entered the final round of the British Open at two shots back. But after missing more gimme putts than a nervous weekend duffer, he lost to surprising Ben Curtis of Ostrander, Ohio, who won his first major championship. Woods, with a 71 on Sunday, finished fourth.

What has happened to Tiger? In truth, he has endured a convergence of nightmares that would have sent a lesser player tumbling back to the Hooters Tour. Like any young athlete who endures invasive surgery for the first time, Woods is simply not the same player he was following knee surgery last winter to remove fluid from his ACL and extract a benign cyst. He's certainly not the same physically -- and perhaps not mentally, either.

Then there's that equipment thing, so eloquently revealed to us by Mickelson. Mickelson was referring to the Nike Clubs Woods had been using since last year in deference to his corporate obligations, and indeed Woods was more than respectable, if not dominant. But every golfer alive knows the feeling of playing with equipment that simply doesn't feel right. It might be brand, shiny and new -- just delivered from your favorite golf equipment Internet site -- but soon you find yourself rummaging in the back of the garage for that old reliable stick. Yet by the time Woods went back to his old driver a couple of weeks ago, it may have been too little too late to salvage the year.

Though he finished second last week at the Buick Open, Woods was awful in the first round of the PGA on Thursday -- as awful as I'd ever seen him. He couldn't hit a fairway, green or putt. He slammed clubs, cursed, scowled and sulked. At 4-over going into Friday, he was in danger of not only failing to win a major in 2003, but perhaps even missing the cut in a major for the first time since 1998. More telling, absolutely none of his fellow players were looking over their shoulders.

Roy S. Johnson is an assistant managing editor for Sports Illustrated. His "Pass the Word" column appears on SI.com every Friday. Catch Johnson on CNN Headline News every Thursday at 3:40 p.m. ET.

 

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