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Tiger's focus squarely on year's final two majors

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Robert Lusetich

After more than 20 years of covering everything from election campaigns to Olympic Games, Robert Lusetich turned his focus to writing about his first love — golf. He is author of Unplayable: An Inside Account of Tiger's Most Tumultuous Season. MORE>>
Updated Jul 1, 2009 5:40 PM ET
     
 

BETHESDA, Md.

Ever since he taped Jack Nicklaus' record to his wall as a boy and dreamed the biggest of golfing dreams, Tiger Woods has had a very clear idea of what constitutes success. He measures it in majors. It's unfair in many ways because majors are hard to win, and there are only four chances at one of the sport's glittering prizes every year. But Woods didn't get to where he is — 14 majors and counting, four short of the Golden Bear's record — by setting the bar low. And so, as he tees it up Wednesday with Tony Romo — go figure, a Cowboy in the heart of Redskin territory — at the Pro-Am ahead of Woods' own tournament, the AT&T National at Congressional Country Club, he won't need reminding that he's only got two shots left at saving his season. Woods hasn't been shut out of a big trophy in five years and he's only lived through three collars in the 12 seasons he's been majoring in majors: 1998, 2003 and '04. The latter two years represented his most barren streak, ten majors without winning from the 2002 U.S. Open to the '05 Masters.
If Woods is to avoid a shutout this year, he's going to have to win either at a course he's never before seen — Scotland's Turnberry — or at Hazeltine in Minnesota, the site of his first real heartbreak at a major. At his pre-tournament news conference on Tuesday, Woods assessed his performance in the first two majors of his comeback year — both ties for sixth — before looking ahead. "The Masters, I didn't hit the ball particularly well but I hung in there," he said. "Just by knowing how to play the golf course, I got around and gave myself a chance, but I wasn't hitting it well enough. In the years that I've won there, I've hit the ball a lot better than that. "But at the U.S. Open, I hit the ball really well and made nothing. I didn't have my speed right and I hit a lot of putts that lipped out and when you don't have the speed right, they're lipping out. "Certainly, I hit the ball well enough to win the golf tournament, but just like all major championships, you have to have all the pieces going and it just didn't work out." Turnberry, he acknowledged, presents a problem because it's been out of the British Open rotation for 15 years and so he's only ever seen it on television. "There's only so much you can see on videotape," he said. "I'll have to get there in person.
"I hit the ball well enough to win the golf tournament, but just like all major championships, you have to have all the pieces going and it just didn't work out."
— Tiger Woods, on the U.S. Open
"The whole idea before I get there is actually to have everything dialed in; feel comfortable with my swing, short game, putting, everything dialed in — then start getting the feel for how to play over there. You've got to get your sight lines and all that means is I have to do more homework once I get there and make sure I truly understand how to play the golf course and have a game plan come Thursday. "Hazeltine has been a while, but I came close there, and I liked Hazeltine." Woods roared home with a final round 67 at the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine but lost by a single shot to Rich Beem, a happy-go-lucky Texan with nothing to lose who apparently didn't get the memo that third-round leaders at majors are supposed to implode under the pressure of Tiger Woods. Not that Woods needs to feel pressure, but he's not impervious to the talk show chatter that he's lost something since undergoing knee reconstruction surgery a year ago. "You guys are doing all the analyzing," he said of the media. "I certainly have won my share of tournaments, but I've lost more than I've won. And that's the nature of our sport. But I've won my share, and hopefully I can win a lot more in the future." He hopes to begin adding to his 67 PGA Tour wins this week. He's not yet won this event, though it should be noted that he's only played it once and it's only been in existence for two years. "Certainly, I'd love being the greedy host," he joked. "It is fun winning your own event." Woods admitted that he hadn't fully appreciated the implications of playing alongside Romo in the pro-am. "For him to come here to D.C., certainly I didn't realize it was going to be this big a deal," Woods said. "He is a big golf nut and loves to play golf and ... I've always wanted to play with him. "It's going to be a fun round but also an interesting one. Granted, he's used to getting booed." On the subject of punishment, Woods revealed that he's got a mean streak in him when his clubs don't behave as they should. On Tuesday, he told of once throwing his putter into a lake — but only for a night, as he went to retrieve it the next day — and said that on another occasion, he tied a recalcitrant putter to the back of his golf cart and dragged it around for 36 holes, hoping presumably to beat some sense into the club. "Both of those putters are no longer in the lineup," he said. And what of the flatstick that betrayed him at Bethpage? Turns out it didn't escape New York unharmed. "It's still in the bag. It's been okay for a number of years but yeah, it was certainly altered (that) Monday night." Given the importance of Turnberry in two weeks' time, it's a putter on a short leash; another bad major and an eternity sleeping with the Loch Ness monster awaits.

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