Why Tiger will not fall at the third

13 April 2012

Tiger Woods is a

In the 67 editions of this major
only two players have previously
been in the position to achieve
what Americans colloquially call
the “threepeat” — Faldo himself
and Jack Nicklaus.

That two such giants of the
game failed in their quests to win
three times in a row reveals the
size of the task that awaits Woods
when the first round gets under
way tomorrow on a course made
sodden by torrential rain.

Yet Faldo believes Woods won’t
be lacking the will to create
history. “Tiger just wants to beat
every record,” he said. “Tiger
wants golf record books to have
just one name in them. His own. It
is as simple as that. And I’m sure
that is what will motivate him this
week.”

At the relatively tender age of 27
Woods is already writing his own
chapter, headed “repeat”, in those
record books.

He was the first player to win
three successive US Amateur
titles, in 2001 he became the first
golfer to win four consecutive
majors, and last month at the Bay
Hill Invitational he became the
first player in 73 years to win the
same US PGA Tour event four
times in a row.

Nicklaus believes that
experience will stand Woods in good
stead over the next four days.

The holder of a record total of
six Masters titles said: “The
hardest to win is once. It has to be a
hell of a lot easier to win a
tournament three times in a row. You
have already proven you can win
on the course, and you have
confidence there.”

Easy to say, harder to execute. As
Nicklaus discovered when he
chased his own piece of history
more than three decades ago.

The Golden Bear dominated the
Masters in 1965, winning by nine
strokes with a 15-under-par total
of 271 to establish a mark not
broken until Woods’s sensational
triumph in 1997.

The next year Nicklaus
struggled, by his standards, to win an
18-hole play-off against Tommy
Jacobs and Gay Brewer.

At the time he insisted: “I don’t
think I’ll ever play that badly in
the Masters again.” But he did,
missing the cut by one stroke in

1967. Faldo earned his shot at
Masters immortality with consecutive
sudden-death play-off victories
over Scott Hoch and Raymond
Floyd in 1989 and ’90.

Pressure and form killed the
British star’s hopes of winning
the title a third time. “You’re a
marked man,” he said. “You think
about it and people talk about it.
That’s really the hardest part.”

Faldo, who had slipped from No1
in the world rankings to second
behind Ian Woosnam the week
before the 1991 Masters, added:
“You know in your heart of hearts
if you have a chance.

“I don’t know if I was playing
that well that year. In ’91 my game
went off a little bit, so you know
in the back of your mind that you
haven’t quite got it that week.”

In the event, Faldo finished tied
for 12th place, five shots behind
the winner, Woosnam.

Now the pressure of expectation
is heaped on Woods’s muscular
shoulders. But 45-year-old Faldo
believes he can take it, saying:
“Tiger’s got the spotlight on him,
but he goes and delivers.

“I did that a couple of times. I
went to majors as the world No1
and favourite, and still went out
and won. Too bad I don’t now how
I did it now.”

There can be no doubt that
Nicklaus still knows how to do it round
a course where he is familiar with
every blade of grass.

But at the age of 63 he accepts
that a younger gun — Ernie Els,
Davis Love and Phil Mickelson
are the names favoured this week
— will have to carry the challenge
to Woods. Even then, Nicklaus
believes Woods retains control
over his own destiny.

He said: “If Tiger plays well he
won’t get beat. If he plays pretty
well or okay, he should still win.
He can still win even hitting it all
over the place. He’s that good.”

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