Tiger Woods Returns to Bethpage Black

Heading into the 2009 U.S. Open on the famed Bethpage Black course on Long Island, the conversation necessarily begins and ends with Tiger Woods. After all, he’s the defending U.S. Open champion after his epic playoff victory over Rocco Mediate last year, 18 holes endured on a ruined knee in a round that, among the many mind-blowing feats of his career, may have been Tiger’s finest moment on a golf course. ↵↵Then you go back seven years to the U.S. Open’s first trip to Bethpage Black, and you find that, lo and behold, one Mr. Eldrick Woods won the title that year as well, a wire-to-wire victory that capped off the miraculous run he had from August of 1999 to June of 2002, when he won seven of the 11 contested majors. ↵

↵↵And yet, going into tomorrow’s opening round, most of the talk surrounding Tiger is not referring back to his win at the 2002 Open, or even to last year’s playoff classic, but to just nine days ago and his victory at the Memorial at Muirfield Village in Ohio. Forget his day’s-best final-round 65 that edged Jim Furyk for the victory – the number that had everyone slack-jawed on that Sunday was 14, the number of fairways on the course, and the number of fairways that Tiger hit in his round, something he hadn’t accomplished in six years and has only done six times in his entire career. Across 72 holes at the Memorial, he hit 49 of 56 fairways, a level of driving accuracy that he hadn’t managed since the 1998 Masters. ↵

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↵↵If Woods remains so deadly accurate off the tee over the course of the next four days, he is likely to win his second U.S. Open in two tries at Bethpage Black. The length of the course and the probable mania of the New York atmosphere combine to favor a long-hitter with a cool disposition, and though there’s more than one player out there who fits that description, none fit it to a tee like the current version of Woods, rebuilt knee and all. ↵

↵↵One would imagine that the men who figure to be chasing Woods are some of the same players who were chasing him on this course in 2002. Phil Mickelson, who finished second to Woods at the 2002 Open, has proven that he has the length and the game to handle this course. What’s more, he’s been agonizingly close at U.S. Opens past, most notable in 1999 when he finished second to the late Payne Stewart, and then in 2006, when his blow-up on the 72nd hole cost him the title. With those heartbreaks in his past, and with the current personal turmoil of his wife’s illness, can Phil ride the raging adrenaline of a New York gallery that will be looking to carry him to an inspirational victory? ↵

↵↵For Sergio Garcia, the fourth-place finisher at Bethpage Black in 2002, the question is different: Can he handle the rowdy throng that are likely to target him, in the absence of dear old Colin Montgomerie, as Europe’s public enemy number one in America? The galleries were not gentle with Garcia here seven years ago, taunting him relentlessly for his incessant “waggling,” and he responded in kind, at one point flipping the fans the bird. He later made himself very unpopular for complaining that weather conditions were so bad on the course that play should have been halted, then going on to suggest that if Tiger had been playing in those conditions, things would have been different. Even though it was seven years ago, these are not the kinds of infractions to be forgotten by the Long Island fans, a crew that loves a villain as much as it loves a hero, and has a collective memory to make elephants seem like they have amnesia. On that score, one imagines that the issue of Sergio’s recent failed relationship with Greg Norman’s daughter is destined to find it’s way into a weekend-long chant (what rhymes with “Norman,” I wonder, and means “dumped”? I think we’re about to find out…). ↵

↵↵Paddy Harrington was in the hunt back in ’02 as well, and posted a top-ten finish back in the day when he was still occupying that “Best Player Never to Win a Major” category that is now the sole domain of Garcia. For Harrington, the questions this weekend will be more focused on the recent and not-so-distant past. He’s missed three of his last four cuts on the PGA Tour, and he has no stateside top tens in 2009. He’s a great player with a major pedigree, but his game right now does not scream out to the world that this is the guy who’s going to rise to the top of a wild weekend on the Island. ↵

↵↵When you take a gander at the oddsmakers’ favorites, along with Woods (at a staggering 3/2 … Tiger Woods once again actually favored to win a major), Mickelson, Garcia and Harrington, you see 2006 U.S. Open champion, Geoff Ogilvy, at 16/1, and the 2003 winner, Jim Furyk, at 20/1. ↵

↵↵Also high in the bookies’ estimation for this weekend are two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen (33/1) and three-time major winner Vijay Singh (40/1). If you’re looking to hit the jackpot, both of those guys seem like likely places to sink a sawbuck, because both fit the bill for the gigantic and tumultuous course that is Bethpage Black. Like Woods, they’re long off the tee and cool under pressure. Of course, right now, as he so often does, Tiger seems to be setting the standards on both of those fronts, and if he keeps his ball in the fairways with anywhere near the accuracy that he did just nine days ago, well, it’s hard to imagine that come Sunday all of his familiar foes won’t be playing for second place.↵

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