Another first for the First Among the Fallen

I was watching The Memorial yesterday, and my dad walked in just after Tiger had birdied the 7th hole to go four under on the day.

“What’s happening?” he asked. 

I said,  “it’s over.”

Tiger was setting the course on fire and the entire field was backing up to him – the classic elements of a Tiger Sunday victory (though he’s never done it in a major Tiger has come from behind to win on tour 20 times).

On his approach shot on 17, the instant Tiger hit it my father shouted “WHOA that ball is up high!” I might have said “yow.” It dropped like a rock 10 feet from the hole and sat there. I said, faux-sarcastic, “yeah, he’s pretty good.”

When Tiger pulled out his 7-iron on 18 and stuck it to eleven inches from a buck-eighty my father just sat in stunned silence and I started muttering “no hope… no hope…” over and over again. I imagine the other 90 players who have so far qualified for this year’s US Open were doing much the same thing at that point.

Tiger Woods has returned, and the end is nigh.

In the past I have written extensively on my beliefs about Tiger’s origins and yesterday was another convincing bit of evidence to support my theory that Tiger Woods is the Devil. Even the poor bastard Tiger was playing with called it “the best golf I’ve ever seen.” Tiger hit 14 of 14 fairways yesterday. He only missed 5 fairways over the entire tournament. He hasn’t driven with that kind of accuracy in, well, technically 11 years, but in reality pretty much ever. Right now, if you’re playing at Bethpage in two weeks you’ve only got one thought in your head:

I. Am. FUCKED.

Before the Memorial you may have been thinking, “hey, I’ve got as good a shot at winning this as anyone. US Open rough, well, that will give everyone a chance.” Yeah, sorry about that, chief: if Tiger Woods is hitting every fairway your chance is gone baby gone. Frankly I don’t know why you’re going to bother even showing up. Do you know what Jones Beach traffic is like on a Saturday morning?

Until Sunday’s excerpt from the Book of Revelation my primary reaction to the Memorial was stunned incredulity. The course is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. I mean the tee shots and the fairways are very nice, but the approach shots and the greens are FUCKING INSANE. Every single one, if you don’t hit it to a very, very small part of the green, forget about it: you’re in two-putt city if you’re lucky. At one point yesterday Jonathan Byrd three-putted from inside 5 feet. And if you don’t hit the green, well, you might as well pick up your ball and go home. The greens are protected by bunkers and water and steep embankments and Aliens and shin-high rough, all screaming “HIT IT HERE AND GET FUCKED.” Guys still hit it there anyway. And oh BOY did they get fucked. At one point my father said “I’ve never seen professionals make so many double bogeys.” Davis Love (who my dad calls “Sticky” for reasons I will not describe) TRIPLE bogeyed 18, a fairly nondescript par 4. It was like the first spring Sunday morning at the Byrne – hack-o-rama.

Whether this was because the greens at Muirfield are modeled after a Cardassian internment camp or because once everyone saw Tiger shoot up the leaderboard they decided to fall on their sword and take the early flight home is a debatable point. Also debatable is whether the US Open just became more interesting or less. If you are the sort who despairs at Tiger’s continuing domination of all he surveys I suppose it just became a little less interesting. If, like, me, you enjoy watching Tiger methodically annihilate anything and everything in his path it just got considerably MORE interesting.

Actually, now that I think about it… 

I see the resemblance.

Related? Could be, could be…

JLK