Tiger Woods, almost unchallenged, won the 102nd United States Open last month to reach the halfway stage in a glittering progression towards the grand slam. He simply eased his way round the awesomely difficult Bethpage Black course on Long Island to win by three strokes from his fellow American Phil Mickelson.
Woods did not play particularly well but he was never required so to do. None of his principal challengers — Sergio Garcia, Jeff Maggert and Mickelson — played well either and in what was a re-run of the US Masters in April he was able to stand and watch as the opposition imploded.
Now the Tiger, burning brighter than ever before, has two more kills to come to achieve what has universally been regarded as impossible; to win all four major championships in a calendar year.
No one has done it as a professional, the concept coming about as a result of the incredible achievements of Bobby Jones who, in 1930, set out to win the Open and US Open plus the Amateur championships of Great Britain and America.
In Jones’s day many of the best players were amateurs, and that he won all four was simply amazing. The strain was such that later that same year he retired, freely admitting he could no longer cope with the pressure. He had won the US Amateur five times, the US Open four times, the Open three times and the British Amateur once. ”It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life,” said Jones about winning that last title.
Ben Hogan came closest in the modern era but having won the 1953 Masters, US Open and Open, he was unable to play in the US PGA, which not only clashed with the qualifying rounds for the Open but also consisted of 36-hole matches that his legs, never properly recovered from an horrific car crash in 1949, would never have carried him through.
Now Woods is going to have pressure such as even he has never experienced. There is little doubt that he has set himself to do the calendar slam, after the response to his achievement in winning four successive majors, culminating in the 2001 US Masters.
Everyone agreed it was a fantastic accomplishment but practically no one, including his own father Earl, was willing to concede that it was a grand slam. It became known as the Tiger slam or the simultaneous slam, particularly because Woods never actually claimed the crown. After the 2001 Masters he was asked directly if he considered he now held the grand slam and he replied, with a truly enigmatic smile: ”I’ve got all four.”
Now he has two more, taking his total to eight and placing him alongside Tom Watson and Gene Sarazen in the matter of professional majors; one behind Hogan and Gary Player; three behind Walter Hagen and 10 behind Jack Nicklaus. But he has won his eight by the age of 26 compared with Nicklaus, who was 30, and is on track to become the greatest of all time.
Some would concede him that title already and there is no doubt that he has a more complete game than Nicklaus had. But Nicklaus not only had longevity, he survived all the traumas associated with bringing up a large family — he has five children — and he remained remarkably healthy until well into his 50s.
Woods has yet to marry and, given that his swing requires a remarkable degree of athletic excellence and puts a great strain on his lower back, it remains to be seen if he can continue to play at the same extraordinary level.
Next up is Muirfield next week for the Open and it is quite a coincidence that the last man who won the Masters and US Open in the same year, 1972, also went to Muirfield to try to win the Open. It was, of course, Nicklaus, and he was so dominant at the time that he believed he could win by playing cautious, defensive golf and did not even put the driver in his bag.
After three rounds, with Lee Trevino and Tony Jacklin ahead of him, he realised aggression was required, reinstated the driver and went round in 66 but lost by a shot to Trevino. He then won the US PGA, the last man to win three majors in a year until Woods in 2000 and, in effect, lost out on a grand slam by that one stroke.
Does Muirfield suit Woods? Does Hazeltine, the Minnesota venue for the US PGA, suit Woods? Tim Herron, an American tour journeyman, has the answer. ”Name me a course that doesn’t,” he says.
”The fact is that Woods is a longer, straighter driver than anyone else and that his incredible club-head speed enables him to escape completely from places that others would be happy just to hack out from.”
Add to that a short game comparable to that of a Ballesteros and a putting touch to rank with, say, Bob Charles or Ben Crenshaw, and you have the complete article.
Greg Norman is cautious. The Australian once led all four majors in the same year but after three rounds — the so-called Saturday slam. He won only one, the 1986 Open at Turnberry, finishing second in the Masters and the US PGA and 12th in the US Open.
He maintained then that the slam was possible but now he says: ”It’s an enormous task. You win the first one, OK. You win the second and the pressure quadruples. Win the third and it’s exponential pressure. Besides, no one has ever thrown a good round at him in the last round of a major. No one has stepped up to the plate and shot a 64, 65. It’s a different ball of wax when you’ve got a five-shot, three-shot lead. It makes the game a lot easier.”
But Brad Faxon, a Ryder Cup player and a contemporary, differs. He says: ”For years we thought that no one could do what Nicklaus did. Now we are already talking about Tiger doing more than Jack.
”Yes, Tiger can definitely win the grand slam. A lot of guys out here hit it well but not every time like Tiger does. He has certainly shown that he can perform when he has to and he has raised the bar of expectation of everyone else. He’s truly amazing.”