04/25/24
April 14, 2002
Tiger Woods successfully defends his title
Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo have some company in their ultra-exclusive fraternity. Tiger Woods cruised to his third green jacket -- and seventh major -- today, shooting a steely 71 at Augusta National to join Nicklaus (1965-66) and Faldo (1989-90) as the only repeat winners of the Masters. Tiger has certainly positioned himself as one of the best to ever play the game.
No, tieguy, I don't think there IS any sane reason to bet against Tiger now. He is clearly SO dominant, that other players just back up and let him have it. Heck, one of those guys: Mickelson, Els, Singh, or Goosen could have shot a low number and beat him. Mickelson was at least ballsy enough to give it a go, taking chances as he did, and Els, aside from his triple bogey on 13, really had a decent round going. Now we'll just have to sit back and see if he gets the single year slam that he really wants. One thing's for sure, is that the advertisers absolutely *loved* having tiger in the lead. Apparantly, it creates much higher ratings.
posted by gnz2001 at 10:32 AM on April 15, 2002
but it doesn't make for a compelling event for me. The lead he had wasn't very big at any time during the last round, but there just wasn't any suspense. The other players can beat him, they just aren't mentally up to it.
posted by corpse at 11:19 AM on April 15, 2002
I hate to say it, but this one ranks right up there with the most boring Masters of the last 10 years. It's disappointing because you can usually count on drama on the back nine, but this year there was none. The only comparably bad recent tournament was 2000 when Vijay won. Even Tiger's blowout in 1997 was exciting because so many records were at play.
posted by jmpeterson at 12:20 PM on April 15, 2002
What was most significant about this Masters, I think, was that Tiger and Mickelson were the only two Americans to finish in the top 10, in an event that has been traditionally dominated by the US, something that owes a lot to its selection criteria. This might be because more international players are on the PGA tour -- especially non-Europeans -- but with four Spaniards up there, it sets an interesting marker for the Ryder Cup.
posted by etagloh at 02:16 PM on April 15, 2002
So... given that golf tournaments are basically a crapshoot- is there any sane reason to ever pick against Tiger? Is there any course or any scenario in which one would sanely think that anyone would have better odds to win than he does? This isn't a rhetorical question; I don't know much about golf. It just seems that this isn't like any other sport- there is no one who is so completely dominant as to discourage betting (think Selassie in the 10K, or the US in Olympic basketball), but at the same time never any sane reason to pick anyone other than Tiger (as one would pick the Yankees to win most all of their games unless, say, they are playing against Randy Johnson.)