Tiger Wins Memorial

A interesting week at Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament ended in familer fashion when Tiger Woods capped an incredible, but hardly improbable comeback to win his second tournament of the year. This was one of those weekends where you expected something like this to happen. The ingredients were certainly there. An angry Tiger (had his worst day in two years on Friday), a familiar course (he had won this event three times before) and an inexperienced leader coming into Sunday (Matt Bettencourt has missed more cuts than he's made in his first year on tour).

Despite Friday's awful day, I never got the sense that Tiger was out of this tournament. I don't think you ever can get that sense, in fact. It sounds cliche, but yesterday was all about Tiger being Tiger. He made lemons out of lemonade. Birdies out of bogies. Pars out of disasters. Golf at its finest. Golf like only few can. Not to mention, on a course that had to be trimmed down because it was determined to be "too tough" for a non major after Kenny Perry's triumph last year.

Woods final number was a -7, 65 for the day. But to me, that's not the whole story. The story lies in the fact that Tiger still has no real competition. You still get the sense that it doesn't matter how many strokes he's behind or how many people he has to hop over. He does it effortlessly almost every time. People love to say that Tiger is lightning up. That maybe he's approaching the second half of a career that's seemed both like an eternity and a flash. But yesterday proved that none of this talk is merited. When Tiger is on, no one has a chance.

It's like he's the only one on the course.

Choke of the Week: Hard to give one this week, but the honors have to go to Jonathan Byrd. Byrd double bogeyed the 17th after a great approach shot. He finished with a 72, tied for third. The fact that their was no big Sunday choke this week speaks to Woods' dominance. No one has to fall for Tiger to hop over them. It's still unlike anything I have ever seen in sports.

Next Stop: Stanford St. Jude championship in Memphis. This marks Phil Mickleson's return to the PGA tour after taking a few weeks off to care for his wife. Other Notables- Brian Gay, Padrig Harrington, Tim Clark, John Daily, and defending champion Justin Leonard.

Jordan Lauterbach