For Tiger, was it a last hurrah or a hint of the future?

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — Who knows where it goes from here? In a way, who cares? This might have been a last, wonderful hurrah for Tiger Woods, the PGA Championship in the humidity and enthusiasm of Middle America.

Or maybe it was a hint about a future that, at moments, could make us remember his past.

But it doesn’t matter. What does matter, for the game and for the golfer, is that for a week there were reminders of the way it used to be.

And a year ago, who dared imagine that would be possible? Not even Tiger.

Three weeks ago, he stirred emotions by working his way into the lead on the final day of the British Open before slipping to sixth, which was impressive, all things considered.

Then, here at Bellerive, green, lush and water-logged, so different from the links in Scotland, Woods played an even better major.

He shot 64 on Sunday, the final round of the 100^th PGA Championship, and had the enormous crowd engaged and hopeful — and, of course, cheering loudly. The roar after a Tiger birdie rumbled across the fairways almost to the banks of the Mississippi.

The tournament in the end would belong to Brooks Koepka, who with a second major in a single calendar year, after the U.S. Open, and a third major overall, including consecutive Opens, right now may be the best golfer on the globe.

He has the long game and, perhaps more importantly, the short game and the poise. Koepka finished with a 4-under-par 66 for a 16-under total of 264, to win by two shots over, yes, Tiger Woods. Welcome to 2000.

Woods closed with a 6-under-par 64. He was holing putts and pumping his fist — and pumping up the fans. He dropped a long one at 18. He was a contender. He finished ahead of Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, British Open winner Francesco Molinari and Jordan Spieth, who in our tendency to exaggerate we’ve called the next Tiger Woods.

Ahead of everyone except Koepka.

But it was the former and current Tiger Woods who made this PGA thrilling. And surprising.

Woods was a question after the two back surgeries, the second to fuse a part of his spine. He needed to change his swing. He was 43, coming off months of inactivity and rehabilitation.

“At the beginning of the year, if you would say, yeah, I have a legitimate chance to win the last two major championships,” Woods conceded, “with what swing? I didn’t have a swing at the time. I had no speed. I didn’t have a short game. My putting was OK.

“But God, I hadn’t played in two years, so it’s been a hell of a process for sure.”

There’s a sporting axiom that greatness is forever. Age and injury may have an effect on performance, but a champion is always a champion. Tiger, we found out in the last few weeks, is still Tiger. In the hunt, he’s a factor.

What is different is this Tiger smiles and slaps hands with spectators, as he did walking up the ramp from the 18^th green. We didn’t know if he would be back. He didn’t know. They say you don’t appreciate something until you don’t have it.

What Woods had during the PGA, especially the captivating last round, was a belief that this is where he belonged, high on the leader board, and striding purposely toward a goal that so many doubted ever would be attainable. It was fun. For him. For everyone.

“Oh, you could hear them,” Woods said of the fans. “They were loud, and they stayed around. It’s been incredible with the positiveness. They wanted to see some good golf, and we produced some good golf, I think, as a whole. The energy was incredible.”

It flowed from Brooks Koepka, from Adam Scott and most of all from Tiger Woods.

“I’m in unchartered territory,” said Tiger about his game, “because no one’s ever had a fused spine hitting it like I’m hitting it. I’m very pleased at what I’ve done so far. Going from where I’ve come to now in the last year, it’s been pretty cool.”

As they used to yell, you’re the man.

Newsday (N.Y.): Jordan Spieth remains upbeat despite making a big mistake

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

ST. LOUIS — He called it a perfect storm, brought about by a less than perfect golf shot.

Jordan Spieth worked a miracle to win last year’s British Open, salvaging a bogey from a driving range. Saturday in the third round of the PGA Championship, there was nothing miraculous, only disastrous.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2018 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Koepka still trying to prove he belongs

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — Yes, Brooks Koepka has an attitude. He also has a game, and in sports — maybe in life — that’s a wicked combination. You’re determined to prove you belong. You have the skill to show that you do belong.

Koepka is a back-to-back U.S. Open champion, arguably one of the three or four best golfers in the world. But it isn’t so much what he’s done that keeps him pushing, but what was done to him.

“I can think of plenty of people along the way telling me I’d be nothing," said Koepka the other day, “working at McDonald’s, doing things like that. The whole time, you’re just trying to prove them wrong.”

Which he has done overwhelmingly.

After matching the lowest round ever at a PGA Championship, a bogey-free, 7-under-par 63 on Friday at Bellerive Country Club, Koepka is high on the leader board with half the tournament remaining.

“I’m just very much in the zone,” he said. “Very disciplined.”

And very driven, which every athlete needs to be.

“Growing up, in college,” said Koepka, “through right when you turn pro, there’s always people who are going to doubt you, say you can’t do it. Even know you’re just trying to prove everybody wrong. That’s the way I view it.”

The way he was viewed by some others was as a kid with a temper. At Florida State, he slammed more than one club to the turf. But all that intensity kept him from surrendering when things went wrong, as they often do in golf.

It’s a maddening game, one without teammates. The frustration builds. On Friday, while Koepka was shooting his 63, Bubba Watson, a two-time Masters winner, shot 78, 15 shots higher. That’s why golfers, no matter if they are touring pros or hackers, never are more confident than the next shot.

Koepka, 28, became a golfer truly by accident. A car crash when he was a boy kept him from playing contact sports. At 6 feet tall and 186 pounds, he looks like an athlete and would prefer to be hitting baseballs over fences than golf balls down fairways. The former major leaguer Dick Groat is a great uncle.

“If I could do it again, I’d play baseball — 100 percent no doubt,” he told Jaime Diaz of Golf Digest. Then again, he said that before winning his first U.S. Open at Erin Hills in June 2017.

Koepka failed in his first attempt to qualify for the PGA Tour. Then, instead of going the usual route, the secondary Dot.com Tour, triple-A minors you might say, he joined the European Tour. It was a grind, in unfamiliar locations with different foods, but it helped toughen Koepka.

An injured wrist kept Koepka out of the Masters, and all golf, this past spring. He said all he could do was sit on the bed and watch others play on TV.

“It was disappointing,” he said, “but when you take four months off, you really appreciate being able to play, and you’re eager to get back. I kind of fell back in love with the game. I just missed competing. It can get a little bit lonely when you’re just sitting on the couch.”

Since returning from Europe and joining the PGA Tour in 2012, Koepka has won only three times. Indeed two of the wins were in the U.S. Open, but you’d presume a player with his skill and grit would have several more.

“I’m not thinking about that when I’m out there,” Koepka insisted. ”I’m just trying to win this week. That’s the thing I’m worried about, winning this week and taking that and moving towards the playoffs.”

Halfway through the 100th PGA Championship, you like his chances. And no, to answer your question, he never did work at McDonald’s.

PGA: Fowler could rid himself of label as best golfer without a major

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — The label is a blessing and a curse: Best golfer never to have won a major. For so long it belonged to Phil Mickelson, who went years and 46 tournaments before escaping it at the 2004 Masters.

Now, for better or worse, it has been assigned to Rickie Fowler.

What it means, of course, is he’s a hell of a player. What it also means is that he doesn’t have a victory in any of the four tournaments that give a man a spot in history.

Second? Yes, Fowler has been runner-up in three of the four, including this year’s Masters. And a third in the other, the PGA.

But we’re talking firsts, like the 18 of Jack Nicklaus, the 14 of Tiger Woods. We’re talking about beating everyone in the field and not beating yourself up over the mistake that proved costly.

The cliché is that if a golfer is in contention enough times he’ll break through. After Thursday’s opening round of the 100th PGA Championship, Fowler is there once more. He shot a 5-under-par 65 at Bellerive Country Club.

But where will he be on Sunday afternoon?

It’s always the elephant in the room for Fowler, the unavoidable subject: Is this the week? Not that the journalists who confronted the 29-year-old Fowler had the temerity to ask that question point blank. They wondered if he knows how long Mickelson needed for his first major. Or if Rickie’s low round had him excited or worried.

“I’m definitely happy,” he explained, but then fell back on old golf logic. “You can’t win the tournament on Thursday, but you definitely can take yourself out of it and lose it, so we took care of what we needed to take care of today.”

He wasn’t playing with a partner. But like some of the other younger players, he affects the plural. Jordan Spieth is another who chooses to say “we” instead of “I.” Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said the use of “we” should be restricted to editors, monarchs and people with worms?

Fowler grew up in Murrieta, Calif., maybe an hour and half east of Los Angeles, and raced dirt bikes. He earned a golf scholarship to Oklahoma State, and on weekends at tournaments he often wears the school’s orange and black.

The plan Thursday was to dress in blue. But the death from cancer 24 hours earlier of the Australian tour pro Jarrod Lyle, a close friend of Fowler’s, was reason enough for Rickie to wear yellow, Australia’s national color, to celebrate Lyle’s life.

“It’s been fun thinking about him while we’re out there playing,” Fowler said, referring to Lyle, “because he probably would be the one to kind of kick you in the butt it you started feeling sad or bad. He would give you a hard time.”

The golf critics have given Fowler enough of a hard time. He was the No. 1 amateur in the world for 37 weeks during 2007-08, and when he turned pro the expectations were overwhelming — and possibly intimidating. He was PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 2010, and yet there’s that lack of a major victory.

“You can’t force the issue,” said Fowler, who then reverted to the plural adding, “and it relates to some of our game plan and how we’re going about this week. I don’t have to play special to win.”

Fowler is a professed St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, and that hasn’t hurt the way he’s been received by the fans, who were out in force on a steamy day when the temperature reached 90.

“I feel I have a great following with people having some ties to Oklahoma State. I feel there’s some kind of a Midwest connection, and definitely being a Cardinals fans and supporter, it’s great to be here and feel the love.”

What he hopes to feel is the trophy and the elation of a win in a major.

“It’s not necessarily something I worry about,” he said. “Keep getting in contention. We’ll just keep beating down that door.”

Tiger’s Bellerive memories: 9/11 and a different type of long drive

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — The drive was a literal one for Tiger Woods, in a car — the only transportation available in a country that had shut down all flights — and it turned out one that provided time for thought.

The PGA Championship, the 100th, begins Thursday at Bellerive Country Club, just west of the Mississippi River. They’ve had previous majors at Bellerive, the 1965 U.S. Open, and the 1978 PGA.

Yet it was a tournament they didn’t have at Bellerive that remains meaningful for Woods.

And, in a way, America.

The 2001 American Express Championship, cancelled because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the Tuesday of tournament week, the day that Tiger would play a practice round with Mark Calcavecchia, at virtually the same time several hundred miles to the northeast, jets were being crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.

The tournament could not go on. Woods was one of the millions unable to travel by air. On Wednesday, September 12, he drove 17 hours back to Florida. “It was a very surreal time, at least for me for me anyways,” said Woods.

A surreal time, and a time for reflection. On that trip Woods made the decision to revise the purpose of the Tiger Woods Foundation, shifting from an emphasis on golf — “a traveling circus,” said Tiger — to an emphasis on education. “And behold, we have 53 different curriculums.”

Woods has yet to play a competitive round at Bellerive. He missed the 2008 BMW, qualifier for the FedEx Cup, after his knee went out in the U.S. Open. “Yeah,” he said Tuesday, “I literally hadn’t stepped foot on the golf course since the week in 2001.”

And the footsteps he finally took were soggy and limited. One of those massive Midwest thunderstorms hit the region in late morning, suspending play and closing the course to spectators for several hours.

This is the new Tiger, the pro who at 43, after the back surgeries and rehab, is at least back as a golfer — “I’m blessed,” he insisted — if not as a front runner.

While he’ll always be a competitor, one wonders if he still should be called competitive.

He made a run, yes, at the British Open two and a half weeks ago, and then had a good start at last week’s Bridgestone, but at the end, where we used to find Woods at the top, he is fifth or sixth or 15th.

His presence will always be a factor. There’s only one Tiger, even if it’s not the Tiger we once knew.

“When I was playing well there for over a better part of a decade,” said Woods, when asked about preparation then and now, “it was the same thought process. The whole idea was to try and get a feel for the golf course and how it’s playing that week, but more than anything to make sure I was fresh and ready to go on Thursday.”

Yet being ready does not necessarily mean being productive. He’s not the golfer he used to be, which even for a superstar who arguably was one of the greatest ever is a matter of growing older.

His scoring average on the back nine in recent tournaments is a stroke higher than on the front nine. “I wish I could figure it out,” said Woods. “I don’t know what it is. If I had an answer, I would give it to you. But I really don’t know.”

What we all know is that in recent majors, even when Woods has a burst reminding us of his play of some 15 years ago, there’s one bad swing — the 3-iron at the 10th hole at Carnoustie leading to the double-bogey — or one missed putt.

Still, two years ago he wouldn’t even have been in the field.

“Well, just the fact that I’m playing the tour again — to have the opportunity again — it’s a dream come true,” said Woods. “I said this many times this year. I didn’t know I could do this again. And lo and behold, here I am.”

Here he is, for a real round at Bellerive. Finally.