Woods poised for third consecutive title run

Tiger Woods, though, simply wants to pick up where he left off last year -- by repeating as champion in his third consecutive Masters .

Woods will begin his quest for the unprecedented three-peat on Thursday when he tees off at 10:44 a.m. ET with reigning U.S. Amateur champion Ricky Barnes and Angel Cabrera of Argentina. The game's No. 1 player has won three of the first five PGA TOUR events he's entered this year.

Woods will be trying to accomplish something only two men -- Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo -- have even attempted at Augusta National. He's already won three Green Jackets, the first in 1997 by a record 12 strokes, and another tailor-made victory come Sunday would hardly come as a surprise.

"He's trying to do something that's never been done -- but that's never stopped him before," Mickelson said. "In fact, it's been a motivating factor. So I would be surprised if he played less than his best."

Love, who made THE PLAYERS Championship his second win in 2003, says a Woods three-peat would be an "incredible accomplishment." Els, who captured four of his first six tournaments worldwide this year, preferred not to ponder the possibility.

"He's done so many amazing things -- it would just be another one," said Els, who is feeling no ill affects from the wrist he injured working out with a punching bag last month. "I don't want to think about him winning three times. I would like to win my first one."

Woods first played Augusta National as a 19-year-old amateur and "I never felt intimidated because I could really drive it a long way," he remembered. His comfort zone has only grown since that first nine holes on Sunday in 1995.

"It's not a golf course where I feel like I'm learning something each and every time I play it," Woods said. "I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of how to play each and every hole."

Augusta National isn't what it's been in years past, though. The course has absorbed more than 2 inches of rain since Sunday, and more is expected overnight and during the first round. In fact, heavy rain and thunder halted Wednesday's Par-3 Contest at 4:30 p.m. ET.

"As you've undoubtedly seen, the golf course has taken just about as much water as it can take," said Will Nicholson, chairman of the competitions committee.

The greens won't be at their usual linoleum-fast speeds, but the grounds crew has done its best to get Alister Mackenzie's crown jewel ready. The putting surfaces have been double-cut every day and 31 hand mowers are being used so that the landing areas are as closely cropped as possible.

Woods prepared for The Masters by hitting quite a few drivers, "because I knew what the forecast was going to be," he said. Els estimated the soggy Augusta National layout would play about 7,600 yards instead of its normal 7,290.

"The field is certainly narrowed a little bit," said Love, one of the TOUR's longer hitters expected to prosper this week. "But I think your short game around here is still very, very important even with the length -- I mean, I have to chip and putt like I did at THE PLAYERS, as well as hit it long."

Retief Goosen went into the final round of last year's Masters sharing the lead with Woods at 11-under par. From Sunday's final pairing, the 2001 U.S. Open champion saw first-hand how easily Woods puts the blinders on as he pushes toward the ultimate goal.

"I think Tiger is very much what Jack Nicklaus was," Goosen said. "He's able to really block out everything that's going on around him. His focus and concentration is so good that he can calm himself out there under these situations very easily."

Els and Love have both tried to mirror Woods' single-minded approach this year. They have challenged the golf course -- not another player -- and have reaped the dividends with two TOUR wins each.

"For a while, I think I went about it in the wrong way," Els said. "I played tournaments -- played majors -- against Tiger. And let's face it, Tiger's going to be there. But if you start playing Tiger on Thursday from the first tee, I think that's the wrong way to go about it.

Posted on Wed, Apr. 09, 2003

Woods keeps opinions to himself -- as is his right
By Skip Bayless
Mercury News Staff Columnist


REUTERS/Mike Blake

Defending Masters champion Tiger Woods is all smiles on the 17th green during a practice round for the 2003 Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - No golfer has ever been a bigger favorite in a major championship.

Jack Nicklaus at his all-time greatest was never this prohibitive a pick in this tournament, which he won six times. Even last year, a compelling case could have been made for Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Davis Love or David Duval to win the Masters.

No more.

This Masters is Tiger Woods' to lose. He owns it the way he owns the minds and hearts of Mickelson, Els, Love and Duval on Sundays on this course. Tuesday, addressing a standing-room-only assembly of reporters from all over the world, Woods said he badly wanted to win an unprecedented third consecutive Masters because he has ``been able to do certain things in golf that no one's ever done.''

Wonder who'll finish second?

But the predictable direction of Tuesday's questions begged bigger ones: Why should a 27-year-old who dominates a sport be expected to change the real world? Why do so many sports fans and journalists insist on equating athletic brilliance with life perspective, great players with great thinkers, jocks with role models, Tiger Woods with, say, Colin Powell?

Someday, when Woods has accomplished all he wants to in golf, maybe he can become the world leader his father predicted. Or the social reformer his Nike ads initially portrayed. Until then, he will receive no hand-wringing condemnation here for concentrating on making Nicklaus the second-best player ever.

Good for Woods if he prefers not to fracture his focus by campaigning for a female member at Augusta National. Hasn't a golfer with African-American blood done enough for now by dominating a tournament that operated for years with a plantation mentality?

Tuesday's sixth unsuccessful attempt to draw Woods into the female-member controversy was: ``Do you think there should be an expectation of professional athletes of your stature to speak out on social or political issues?''

He began by saying that ``certain athletes have their causes -- that's their prerogative.'' Then he said: ``Sometimes just because a person is in the limelight, people have the need for them to have a voice and an opinion and a `where you stand' on certain issues. And some people just choose not to.''

More and more, Woods -- perhaps on the advice of Michael Jordan -- chooses not to. Jordan never has taken stands on issues beyond basketball. Jordan is not a religious man. Jordan hasn't always been a good husband. Jordan is the first to tell you he's nothing more than a great basketball player who loves playing golf, hitting the casinos, smoking cigars and having a few drinks with, among others, Charles Barkley and Woods.

``I'm not an expert on anything else,'' Jordan has often said. Nor, as yet, does Woods pretend to be.

But both have been criticized by Jim Brown for failing to campaign for black equality while making countless millions off black fans who buy products they endorse. They're using their platform, says Brown, only to benefit themselves. True.

But neither has known the racial and salary discrimination Brown did -- he's 67 -- and neither has yet to display his insight or courage. Maybe Woods and Jordan will experience awakenings once they're finished competing, but they have no professional responsibility to ``give back.'' They have given fans great pleasure; they have been greatly compensated.

Woods has conducted golf clinics across the country for kids, many of them minorities. Though the clinics are now mostly confined to Orlando, where he lives, his Tiger Woods Foundation continues to raise millions for charity. But beyond his obsession with golf and fitness -- beyond the TV ads that create a God-like illusion for many of his idolaters -- Woods is still basically a spoiled, filthy-rich kid who likes to hang out with his Swedish girlfriend, do some fishing and play video games.

Saving the world isn't yet on Woods' to-do list. Neither is making an appearance at Martha Burk's across-the-street protest for a female member, scheduled for Saturday before the leaders tee off.

If genuine, his response to this question indicates how little thought he has given to this issue. Does he categorize women not being allowed to join a golf club as prejudice against a minority?

``That's a good question,'' he said. ``Never looked at it that way.''

Jesse Jackson has. So have many who argue that women aren't a minority and haven't suffered nearly the discrimination blacks have. Though Augusta National has six black members, Jackson will combine protest forces with Burk on Saturday.

So does Woods have a gut instinct on whether Augusta National should admit a woman?

``Oh, everyone here knows my opinion,'' he said. Not true. That opinion has varied. ``Should they become members? Yes. But I don't really have a vote in how they run this club.''

That's why the New York Times editorial calling for Woods to boycott this Masters -- his shot at history -- was as unrealistic as it was unfair.

His absence wouldn't influence many members, some of whom prefer to do away with the tournament and return to being just a private club.

Some, no doubt, blame Woods' breakthrough victory in 1997 for attracting reporters without golf backgrounds who began to exaggerate the significance of Augusta National's male-only bylaws.

Woods has changed the Masters forever without saying a word. For now, that's enough. Let him play golf.

Posted on Tue, Apr. 08, 2003

A different week ahead for Augusta
By JOE LOGAN
Philadelphia Inquirer


AP Photo/David J. Phillip

Tiger Woods takes off his glove after he hit on the 3rd tee at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., Tuesday, April 8, 2003 during a practice round for the 2003 Masters.

One of sports' most glorious annual rites of spring, the Masters golf tournament will get under way Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.

The host club, obscured from public view behind a perimeter of 15-foot-high hedges, is a bastion of privilege, privacy, and Southern gentility for its 300 or so members, and is so exclusive that it once shunned overtures from Microsoft magnate Bill Gates to become a member.

For golfers from Gene Sarazen to Jack Nicklaus to defending champion Tiger Woods, victory in the Masters is often the crowning achievement of a career. For fans, the Masters is the toughest ticket in sports, tougher even than the Super Bowl.

But this year, golf and the gilded life inside the gates of Augusta National may well become secondary to the scene just outside - as the culmination of nine months of controversy and discord brings protesters, counterprotesters and, of course, plenty of television cameras.

Since July, the Masters and Augusta National, with its male-only membership policy, have been at the center of a media storm over the rights of private clubs and the exclusion of women that has played out in newspapers, on talk radio and television, even in boardrooms and a few bedrooms.

"We will prevail because we are right," proclaimed William "Hootie" Johnson, 72, a South Carolina banker who is chairman of Augusta National. "We do not intend to become a trophy in their display case."

The display, in this case, belongs to the National Council of Women's Organizations, a Washington lobbying group led by chairwoman Martha Burk, 61, who has waged a media campaign to pressure the club into opening its doors to women members.

`Sooner or later'

"If you want to be a shrine, you have to make yourself worthy of being one," Burk said flatly not long ago. "Sooner or later, there will be a woman member."

To bring attention to her cause, and to help speed along a process that she believes is inevitable, Burk and her supporters plan to protest Saturday outside Augusta National. Exactly where the protesters will be allowed to assemble was still being decided in an Augusta courtroom late last week.

In deference to the war, Burk has decided to tone down the protest, to 200 people or fewer. The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who supports Burk, has vowed to turn out a crowd of his own.

"We will have a traditional protest and a couple of surprises - nothing illegal or disruptive - to make our point," Burk said Thursday.

Counterprotesters have also vowed to show their support for Augusta National. Much to the dismay of the club, the two who have been the most vocal and visible are Todd Manzi, a Tampa, Fla., man who quit his job to devote his full time to running an anti-Burk Web site, and J.J. Harper, of Cordele, Ga., imperial wizard of the American White Knights, a one-man splinter group that he formed after he got booted out of the Ku Klux Klan.

Nine groups, on both sides of the debate, have filed paperwork with the county to protest.

Because of the controversy, on top of the downturn in the economy, the town itself is braced for an off week.

Private letter, public feud

It was on June 12, almost three months after she had read a column in USA Today about the club's men-only membership, that Burk, who is not a golfer and knew almost nothing about the Masters or Augusta National, wrote a letter to Johnson asking that the club admit a female member. It was a private letter, sent only to Johnson and not announced to the media.

"We know that Augusta National and the sponsors of the Masters do not want to be viewed as entities that tolerate discrimination against any group, including women," Burk wrote. "We urge you to review your policies and practices in this regard, and open your membership to women now, so that this is not an issue when the tournament is staged next year."

Johnson, who by club tradition holds virtually all the power as chairman, nonetheless conferred with a small inner circle of members before responding on July 9. When he did, he did so publicly and bluntly.

"There may well come a day when women will be invited to join our membership, but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet," Johnson said in a now-famous statement released to the media. "We will not be bullied, threatened or intimidated."

From then on, it really got ugly.

From the beginning, Burk acknowledged Augusta National's legal right as a private club to include, or exclude, members as it saw fit. She chose to frame the membership flap as a moral issue, not a legal one.

To Johnson, however, morals were not at issue. Plain and simple, he made clear, the only issue was a private club's First Amendment right to determine its own membership. End of story. The Girl Scouts are single-sex, the club argued, as are plenty of women's colleges, clubs and the LPGA Tour.

As Johnson pointed out, women are welcome at Augusta National, whose course, laid out on a 365-acre tract so fertile that it was once an indigo plantation, has been regarded as one of the most beautiful and revered in the world since the day it opened in 1933.

Each year, women play more than 1,000 rounds there, and they dine in the clubhouse. They just aren't members. What's the big deal?

Pressure points

Plenty, in Burk's view. And because so many of Augusta National's members are public figures - politicians who answer to voters and corporate CEOs who answer to stockholders - she went about trying to persuade them to bring about change from within the club.

She met with some success. In November, Thomas Wyman, former chief executive officer of CBS, publicly resigned from the club. On the way out the door, Wyman, who has since died, called Johnson "pigheaded" and suggested that as many as 50 to 75 members wanted to admit a woman. The heat was also felt in Washington. When businessman John Snow was nominated by President Bush to become Treasury secretary, the first thing he did was quit Augusta National.

Another prominent member, Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill, announced that he, too, agreed that the club ought to admit a woman. But when neither Weill nor any other member followed Wyman's lead in quitting, Burk turned her attention to the corporations that sponsor the Masters: IBM, General Motors, Citigroup and Coca-Cola.

She also confronted the PGA Tour, which not only has a stated policy against holding tournaments at clubs with discriminatory policies, but also has been instrumental in persuading clubs, including Augusta National, to admit black members. Finally, Burk went after CBS, the so-called Tiffany network, which takes immeasurable pride in having broadcast every Masters for the last 47 years.

On TV, no disruption

For every Burk serve, Johnson seemingly had a return.

Before IBM and the other sponsors had to confront a potential backlash or boycotts, the Augusta National chairman got them off the hook, announcing that the club would stage the 2003 Masters out of its own pocket, without sponsors and TV commercials.

The PGA Tour and CBS also essentially thumbed their noses at Burk, no doubt believing that their interests were better served by sticking by the Masters and its power-broker membership.

To not televise the Masters "would be a disservice to fans of this major championship," CBS Sports president Sean McManus wrote to Burk.

When liberal-minded newspaper columnists began taking pot shots at Johnson, depicting him as a narrow-minded rube with a goofball nickname and comical Southern drawl, Johnson hired a Washington public-relations firm specializing in crisis management to defend his honor, his club, and his record as a progressive leader in South Carolina, where while making a fortune in banking he was hailed for his hiring and promoting of women, helped integrate universities in the state, and was an early supporter of black candidates for office.

As all this played out, Woods and other golfers who hoped to play in the Masters watched in horror. Every week, at every stop on the PGA Tour, they were asked their thoughts about the growing controversy. Of course, Woods, as golf's main attraction and the Masters' two-time defending champion, was under the most pressure.

Like a skilled politician, he handled the hot potato cautiously, allowing that, yes, he'd like to see a woman invited to become a member but that he is not a member and has no say in the matter. Woods did, however, speak out when the New York Times published an editorial urging him to skip the Masters in order to send a strong message about discrimination.

Angry, Woods said he would not "give up an opportunity no one has ever had - winning the Masters three years in a row."

And so, with four days to go, with Johnson gearing up for the Masters, and with Burk gearing up for protests, they both remain as resolute and as convinced of their convictions as they were in the beginning.

"What has been most gratifying is that, all along, the public has believed by a wide margin that Augusta National has every right to make its own, private decisions," the club said in a statement Thursday. "We expect that once the week begins, nearly everyone will only be watching what promises to be a terrific tournament."

Asked if she had any idea of the controversy she was about to unleash with her letter nine months ago, Burk sighed. "Absolutely not," she said with a laugh. "But when issues come along, we take them where we find them."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.