MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / February 24, 2000

Tiger Woods shot a 1-over par 72 to finish in a tie for 18th at the Nissan Open Sunday.

Wait, that’s got to be a misprint. Woods not in the top 10 in a golftournament? Next thing you will tell me is that North Carolina is not in the top 25 in the college basketball poll.

But it’s true. In a tournament in which Kirk Triplett won for the first timeafter 266 tournaments, Woods did not make it in the top 10 for the first time since he tied for 18th at the MCI Classic last August. That was 13 PGATour events ago.

This is man-bites-dog stuff. Woods has been associated with more top 10sthan David Letterman. In 73 tour events, he has 46 finishes in the top 10, a63 percentage rate. If Bill Clinton had come out with a list of people he mostadmired and Kenneth Starr and Linda Tripp were at the top, it would not have been more surprising.

This is from a player who just two weeks ago won his sixth straight PGA Tour event. There was talk of him doing the improbable – beating Byron Nelson’srecord of 11 straight victories. It took a remarkable performance by PhilMickelson and some mistakes of his own for his streak to come to an end last week at the Buick Invitational. The six-event winning streak was thelongest in 52 years.

Just think how improbable Woods’ streak was. He won the Tour Championshipin October, defeating the top 30 golfers on tour, after hitting a rock on a swing and hurting himself. The first four wins came at the end of the 1999season and the last two at the beginning of the 2000 season. His averagescore during the streak was 68.2 and of the 24 rounds he played, 19 wereplayed under par.

Few on the tour since the likes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus make Sunday charges like Woods. How do you think David Sutherland, the third-round leader, felt going into Sunday knowing that Woods was only three back? After all, Woods was the one who in seven holes last week rallied from seven shots back to tie Mickelson in just seven holes. And he was the one torally from seven shots back with seven to play to win the Pebble Beach Pro- Am two weeks ago.

And there have been few better in getting to the weekend. Woods has made47 straight cuts, the sixth-longest streak in tour history. Nelson holds therecord with 113. Nicklaus is second with 105 straight cuts.That may be an even more impressive streak for Woods than his six-straight tournament wins. Think about it. For 47 straight weeks, he has beaten halfthe field on different courses in different conditions. The next best on tourcurrently has made less than 20 straight cuts. And he was doing it againstmuch larger and much deeper fields than either Nelson or Nicklaus had to deal with.

The scary thing about is that Woods will probably only get better. He alreadyhas won two majors and is the second leading money winner in tour history and he is only 24 years-old. And he is one who is not content to settle forsecond place no matter how many times he has won before.

Walter Hagan used to ask “who’s playing for second” before his matches.

With Woods in the field, that same question can be asked today.

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