Rozner: Tiger Woods once again the major story
There's little doubt that the big take-away from Sunday's extraordinary conclusion to the Open Championship at Carnoustie is that Tiger Woods couldn't finish in a major.
It will be the dominant national story, that the greatest of all time could not handle the lead on a Sunday in a major, that he's no longer capable of playing great golf under pressure.
It won't be that World No. 1 Dustin Johnson missed the cut. Or that No. 2 Justin Thomas missed the cut. Or No. 5 Jon Rahm missed the cut.
It won't be about defending champ Jordan Spieth, No. 6 in the world, who shot 5-over on Sunday when even-par would have won him another major.
It won't be that Brooks Koepka, the two-time U.S. Open champ, and fourth-ranked player in the world, finished the tournament at 2-over par.
It won't be that Rickie Fowler, No. 7 in the world, with another chance to win his first major, played the weekend in 3-over par.
It won't be that World No. 10 Tommy Fleetwood started the day at 5-under, birdied the first and was 3 shots off the lead, but bogeyed 5, doubled 6 and bogeyed 7 to shoot his way out of the tournament.
Nope. It will be that Tiger Woods failed.
Yes, that is the price he pays for being the best of all time, but it is so utterly lacking perspective.
Only six months ago, in late January in San Diego, Woods teed off at Torey Pines as No. 674 in the Official World Golf Rankings, amid much skepticism and zero optimism.
Woods had he played in only 18 tournaments in 2014-15, none in 2016 and one in 2017, undergoing back surgery in 2014, twice in 2015 and finally spinal fusion in April 2017.
The narrative was that he would never play again, and if he did he would never stay healthy enough to finish a tournament, let alone win a tournament.
He started the year with a new back, new swing, new driver, new irons and new ball.
He has since changed his driver shaft, changed the driver head and put new irons and new wedges in the bag. Now, he's brought in a new putter.
Woods works constantly at dialing in his distances, all different with new clubs and a different swing.
One week his irons are great, but his woods are terrible. The next week his woods are better, but his short game his awful. The next week his wedges are great, but his putting is bad.
This is normal. Focus extensively on one part of the game and another will suffer.
So when he gets to the point where all of it is working, when he can get on the course and play golf without having to accommodate one sluggish part of his game, Woods will have a chance to win - and win big.
But right now he's playing with half his game in a given week, competing with the best in the world who don't have the same handicap.
The truth is it's ridiculous that he's come this far in half a year, with four top 10s in 12 starts after four years of almost no golf at all.
This is a right-handed pitcher making the all-star team in midseason of his first year back off a long layoff … while throwing left-handed.
That's the real story.
At the Presidents Cup in late September, Woods said he wasn't sure if he would ever play golf again, and Sunday he had the lead on the back nine of a major championship, six months after returning to competitive golf at age 42 after four back surgeries in four years.
It's absurd. Some would say it's impossible.
No one, especially Tiger Woods, thought this was possible in 2018 and yet it's happening before our very eyes.
No, the story isn't that he didn't close on Sunday. The story is that he played four more rounds of golf, seemingly healthy, and had a chance to win a major on the hardest course in the Open Championship rotation, while Johnson and Thomas missed the cut and Spieth gave away the Open with a plus-5.
Tiger Woods shot an even-par 71 in ferocious winds and tied for sixth at Carnoustie, moving him to No. 50 in the world, a jump of 624 places in six months.
That, impossible as it sounds, is an amazing story.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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