The transition in golf from the era of Tiger Woods domination has not exactly been subtle. Twenty-something talents have been bombing it past him for a few years now, and taking the game’s most prestigious tournaments while they do it. Tiger’s game and health, of course, have hastened the transition to this younger, ascendant group over the past 18 months.
The U.S. Open is making Tiger Woods look old
Tiger Woods spent Tuesday coming to grips with just how much older he is than some of the players now competing in the game’s biggest events.
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This week at the U.S. Open, however, Woods has been smacked with several off-the-course anecdotes that reinforced just how old he’s becoming in these major championship fields. It started with the 15-year-old sectional qualifier Cole Hammer, who said his first memory of the U.S. Open was Tiger’s 2008 win -- not that transcendent Pebble Beach performance, or his Bethpage win, or any one of Phil Mickelson’s recent second-place heartbreaks. But Tiger’s Monday playoff win at Torrey, his last major title.
Most of the field has a career full of Tiger memories or battle scars, but now there are players showing up who have spent most of their life watching golf during this seven-year Tiger major-less drought.
First memory I have of the U.S. Open is when Tiger won in 2008, when he did that fist pump on 18th green. That’s -- I think I’ve been watching the U.S. Open since then.
It was hard to comprehend, and the press was quick to bring it up with Tiger when he sat down later. The three-time U.S. Open winner was incredulous, rolling his eyes with an exasperated sigh before recounting his own first TV memory of some 30 years ago.
While he’s not a 15-year-old who can’t drive or drink alcohol, Jordan Spieth still comes from an entirely different generation than Woods. That was evident on Tuesday when the two went out for a practice round together. In an attempt to describe some of the extreme green complexes at Chambers Bay, Woods analogized the balls bounding down the slopes to Plinko from Bob Barker’s Price is Right. Spieth had no idea what he was talking about or who Barker was on the show (via Gregg Bell of Tacoma News Tribune)
“He thinks (Barker’s) from ‘Happy Gilmore,’ ” Woods said of the Adam Sandler movie. “C’mon, man!
“This is when you know you are old.”
So Woods will go out there this week and grind to compete against a generation of golfers who are just as fit and hit it farther than he does. But it’s some of these age-gap anecdotes that are becoming more startling.
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