Tiger Woods, champion for the past two years, teed off at the Augusta National on Thursday as the hottest favourite in the history of the US Masters — or any other major championship.
Almost universally quoted at 6-4, he supplants Jack Nicklaus, who was 2-1 for the 1972 Muirfield Open, as the lowest priced favourite since golf and the bookies came together.
Though the odds may not realistically represent the strength of the field, they do reflect the fact that this week there has been a reversal of Murphy’s Law, in that everything that could go right for Woods, has.
He comes to Augusta with confidence dripping from every pore. Not only is he going for three green jackets in a row, he is attempting it on a course that might have been built with him in mind.
It is not only very long and very difficult, it is soaking wet and, therefore, longer and even more difficult: a course on which only the best can prosper. And Woods is the best. He is ranked No 1 in the world and as Davis Love III, ranked third, said after winning the Players Championship: ‘I could win every major for the next four years and still not overtake him.â€
Furthermore, Woods has completely recovered from the knee injury which had a debilitating effect on him last year, to the point where he won only five tournaments and $7-million on the US Tour. How? ‘By smoke and mirrors,†he said recently.
Those winnings, incidentally, were apart from his earnings, which People magazine in America estimated at $69-million for the year 2002. It estimated his personal fortune at $212-million. He is set to add substantially to it. Now, he says, he can make all the moves in a swing that he wants to, for the first time since 2000 — the year he won three majors.
Woods claims he is learning to relax. ‘Even as a little boy,†he said, ‘I was always very intense when playing. I used to get too into it. I’d get tired by the 13th/14th because I was so focused on what I was doing. But you can’t be that intense for five hours, it’s not possible. So I’ve learned to break it up, to relax a little.â€
A relaxed, confident, physically fit, mentally alert Tiger? Make those odds evens.
If not Woods, then who? Maybe a Woods swingalike. The up-and-coming kids on the golf scene all have similar swings to Woods, they all smash the ball vast distances and are possessed of driving ambition.
Adam Scott, Charles Howell III and Justin Rose are all tall and athletically slim, they can coil their bodies like a twisted towel and their balance is perfect. It would be perfectly reasonable to expect all three of them to win at least one major before they are finished, and the only question is how soon?
This may be a Masters too soon for Rose, whose first time this is at Augusta. He confessed that it was ‘everything I ever dreamed ofâ€.
Still looking like an overgrown schoolboy at the age of 22, Rose, when looking for the locker room, was conducted to the Crow’s Nest, the spartan dormitory that houses the amateurs competing in the Masters. At 42nd in the world rankings, Rose is no amateur.
He arrived early in Augusta and played a practice round with Howell, who was brought up in the area and knows the National from the days when, as a tiny tot, he carried pairings scoreboards around the course.
Scott is playing his second Masters, having given notice that the course suits him by finishing ninth in his first.
Ernie Els is the second favourite at 13-2, Davis Love III next at 12-1 and, of the highest ranked Europeans, Padraig Harrington may be the best bet at 25-1. He had three top-10s in the majors last year, missed the Open play-off by a stroke and two weeks ago was second in the Players Championship.
‘He is,†said Woods’s coach Butch Harmon, ‘the most improved player in the world in the last three years.†—