Three And Out Storm Ends Mortal’s Enjoyable, Revealing Round With Tiger

The ball cracked off Tiger Woods’ club with an alarming noise that must surely have been accompanied by sparks, rose in a majestic arc over the top of the trees at the dogleg and, as if on cue, gently bent left around the corner and plopped into the middle of the fairway.

Since the 1996 U.S. Amateur, I had stood next to Woods when his powerful body uncoiled into a tee shot hundreds of times. It’s my job.

This time it was different. This time it was my turn to hit.

I had prepared for this shot at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club by hitting ball after ball on the practice range. After watching Woods’ ball disappear from view, a frightening thought crossed my mind: I was no longer on the range.

It was time to hit.

One of the bad things about Woods hitting first - aside from the obvious intimidation factor - was that he hit, of course, from the very back tee. The choice was now whether to hit from the same tee or make an ego-deflating walk to one of the several tee markers farther up.

The smart thing to do was to hit from a forward tee. But this was not a day for smart things. It was a day for pure fantasy, a day to see how a mere mortal measured up against the most famous golfer in the world.

I’d like to think the reason the ball fell off the tee the first time I placed it on the peg was because I had the tee in at an angle and not because my hands were shaking. Truly, I’m not sure.

Looking back on it now, as I moved into my stance my mind and body went on a sort of automatic pilot. Surrendering conscious thought to instinct is usually a good thing for me. But this time I was moving a little too fast.

It was almost as if something inside me decided that if I hit this shot quickly there would be less time to make a mistake.

I don’t remember taking the club back - a slow takeaway is my central swing thought - and I have absolutely no memory of seeing the ball at impact, which likely explains why I caught the ball a wee bit high on the club face.

What I do remember is looking up to watch my drive float away on a higher trajectory than one of my good hits but on a perfect line hugging the inside of the dogleg left.

What I do remember were the words spoken as the ball found the fairway about 240 yards out - and 80 yards behind Woods.

“Good one, Ronnie,” Woods said.

My initial disappointment that I hadn’t ripped one of my best drives - there was another 35 or so yards rattling around in there - was soon replaced by the realization that I also hadn’t embarrassed myself.

Success is always measured in a variety of ways.

The good news about my round with Woods was that he defeated me by only two strokes. The bad news was that we played only three holes. That’s when the lightning alarm chased us off the course.

What was amazing, however, was how quickly it became simply a round of golf. That was as much a tribute to the beauty of the game as it was to the genuine joy Woods finds in playing it.

There seems to be no place Woods enjoys more than a golf course. He clearly loves what he is doing.

Two weeks short of his 22nd birthday, Woods clearly wants to figure out how to let an adoring public get to know him and still have a private life.

“I would like them to know me as me, but there are certain things I don’t want to give them,” he said. “I want them to know me personally, but I don’t want them to know my personal life.”

Much about Woods can be learned by watching him on the golf course.

On the third green of our round, the lightning alarm wailed.

“Should we go on?” Woods asked with almost the same wishful thinking of any player not wanting to leave the course.

“No,” I said. “That’s not the story I came to write.”