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The Spectacle Blog
As a non-fan (not a hater of, just not a fan) of Tiger Woods, this isn’t what I want to say, but…. I predict Woods will win this week’s U.S. Open by six shots over Padraig Harrington and one other player (at least) from among a group including Lee Westwood, Spencer Levin, Davis Love, and Senior Tour player Michael Allen.
Then again, my sports predictions haven’t been worth much in recent years. After many years of being freakishly successful at predicting golf tournaments, NCAA hoops tourneys, and some other sporting events — and after correctly choosing Funny Cide and Smarty Jones 9both somewhat long shots) to win the Kentucky Derby, and choosing Giacomo the next year to place (another long shot) — I thought I had a knack for this sort of thing. Well, other than Ryder Cups, that knack has gone click-clack, out the back, and completely out of whack. On the horses, I keep picking the runner-up: the third and fourth place horses to go 1-2 in the Preakness, and the second-place horse (Paynter) to win the Belmont. All of which is to say, take this with a grain of salt. That said, if I were in Vegas, I’d bet heavily on Woods.
Of course, this being Olympic, with its record in Opens, it might just be that Tiger’s six-stroke edge will occur with nine holes left, but when the smoke clears somebody like Geoff Ogilvy will have stolen it away.
But don’t bet on it.
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More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/06/12/tiger-to-run-away-with-us-open
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R Martin| 6.12.12 @ 5:20PM
You have made some strange golf calls, and this is certainly one of them. Olympic calls for accurate driving and precise putting on difficult greens. Accordingly, I'm going with Luke Donald to win his first major. As to betting, I'd be willing to put a glass of wine on it should your travels ever take you through Wilmington, DE.
Quin Hillyer| 6.12.12 @ 6:17PM
Well, Tiger is leading the tour this year in total driving. And he led the Memorial in fairways hit throughout most of that tournament. He has developed this controlled fade that seems very repeatable now, even though (to my eye) it looks dog-ugly. Plus, he has the best recovery game from off of the fairway of anybody playing today.
That glass of wine sounds good!
Bob K| 6.12.12 @ 8:02PM
It is a tradition for the Open courses to have much narrower fairways and significantly higher rough than is found in the 3 other Big 4 tournaments so he'd better be on his game when it comes to driving!
And it has gotten to the point that they will no longer allow the crowd to remove problems from in front of any bad lies like big rocks; which happened in a Major Tournament back when he was popular.
Oldefarte| 6.13.12 @ 11:37AM
If I were a competing golfer, I'd simply partake of the services of 18 HO, HO, HO'ER and place one in the front row of the onlooking gallery at each/every opening tee shot; so as to possibly keep his mind off of his upcoming shot. As they say, ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR!!!!!!
astorian| 6.14.12 @ 11:53AM
Tiger is the best golfer ever. He was more dominant than even Nicklaus, against tougher competition than Nicklaus faced.
Once, it was logical to predict, "Tiger WILL win by a mile." But it's silly now, because Tiger just isn't the same golfer.
He can still win tournaments, maybe even another major. He may even win back his #1 ranking. But he'll NEVER be dominant again.
That's not because of his scandals- it's because he's getting old and has knee problems that aren't going to get much better. He's can stil have great moments, great days, even great weekends. But it's foolish to wait for the "old" Tiger to come back. THAT guy is long gone, and he's never coming back.
Between Tom Watson's decline and the rise of Tiger Woods, there were many guys who were temporarily the best in the world. At various points, that might have been Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, Curtis Strange, Vijay Singh or Ernie Els. But as good as they all were, did they intimidate anybody? Nobody thought "Vijay is just too good... I CAN'T beat him"? Nobody melted down because they knew Curtis Strage was lurking. For all that time, even the #1 player was just first among equals.
That's the best Tiger Woods can ever hope for again. He CAN still win, he CAN still be #1 , but he's NEVER going to run away with a tournament again.
He's still good. Very good. But he's NOT a phenomenon any more. Ten years ago, it might have made sense to make him the odds-on favorite to win a torunament. But not any more.