Monday, August 19, 2002
Tiger's relationship with swing coach has changed
PGA notebook
By DAVE CAMPBELL
AP Sports Writer
CHASKA, Minn. — Here's another sign of success in the already amazing career of Tiger Woods: He's finding less of a use for swing coach Butch Harmon.
“Every player, as you get a little bit better and you understand your own mechanics, you understand your game, you don't rely on a teacher quite as often. That's what has transpired with me,” Woods said Sunday after finishing a stroke behind winner Rich Beem in the PGA Championship.
“I still need Butch, yes, but not as much as I used to, because I've got a better understanding of my own game, and of the faults that I have, and how to fix them.
“But Butch, he's got a great eye for the swing, there's no denying that.”
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BEEMING FATHER: New Mexico State golf coach Larry Beem was an emotional wreck watching son Rich hold off Tiger Woods.
“There's a point you can't go beyond without just dying,” Larry Beem said from his home in Las Cruces.
The tensest moment of all, he said, was “that 12-incher on the last hole — the last putt.”
He noted that Rich was born the day of the final round of the 1970 PGA Championship. “They delayed the PGA to a Monday round, and he was born on that Monday,” he said.
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PHIL'S PLANS: Phil Mickelson has another offseason to figure out how he can finally win a major, but not sure how much down time he'll have. And he's not certain whether he'll pair up with Woods in the World Cup in December.
“I haven't been asked to play yet, and typically that's not the time of year I like to play,” Mickelson said Sunday after finishing the PGA at 6-over 294.
“I don't know if it will play into Tiger's schedule. I'm not saying I won't play, but I'm just not sure yet. Are we really having our best chance to win it if I haven't been playing much?”
Woods' calendar is pretty full at the end of the year. He's playing the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Hawaii Nov. 26-27, The Skins Game the next week and his own tournament, the Williams World Challenge, the following week. If he participates in the World Cup, held Dec. 9-15, Woods will only have two weeks off before the 2003 tour starts.
Mickelson said the Ryder Cup, to be played Sept. 27-29 in England, might be his last tournament of the year. His mind might be changed, though, by a new driver he's supposed to get in mid-September.
“That could be a motivating factor for me to play three or four more tournaments,” Mickelson said.
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MAKEUP DAY: The weather for Sunday's final round at Hazeltine National Golf Club — cool, cloudless, calm and sunny — meant a lot of low scores. And a handful of big names made up for poor showings in difficult conditions earlier in the tournament.
Veteran Tom Watson was the most notable of those. After an 83 on Saturday put him at 14 over, Watson rebounded with a 67 that included seven birdies. That's one shy of the official course record.
Watson, one of 34 players in this weekend's tournament who played Hazeltine's last major, the 1991 U.S. Open, finished at 9-over 297. With no wind and softened greens, Watson tore through the course.
“It's bittersweet,” Watson said. “Eighty-three is an ugly score. It sticks in your craw when you shoot an 83. I went out today to prove to myself that I could do better than that. Granted, the conditions were tough yesterday, but an 83 is still an ugly score and I was very embarrassed by it. I atoned for my sins yesterday to a certain degree.”
His playing partner, Don Berry, a club pro from Minnesota, was impressed.
“Considering I didn't play great, it was one of the most fun rounds I've played,” said Berry, who met Watson for the first time on the opening tee Sunday. “I felt like I knew him by the second fairway. My favorite memory of the tournament will be today, playing with Tom Watson.”
Others who bounced back included Sergio Garcia, who shot a 68 after entering with a 5-over 221, and David Duval, who shot a phenomenal 31 on the front nine to finish at 70 for the day and 6 over for the tournament.
Sunday's average score, 73.298, was more than 2 1/2 strokes lower than Saturday's 75.878.
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FAST FINISH: Finishing the third round in last at 233 after a quadruple bogey and a triple bogey, Pat Perez blamed his poor performance on a lack of interest.
To no one's surprise, he didn't put much effort into the final round. Perez played alone in 1 hour, 53 minutes and 30 seconds and closed with a 76 in his PGA Championship debut.
“It could have been even faster, but I got held up on the 18th,” he said.
Seems another twosome was putting on the adjacent ninth green, and Perez decided to wait on them so he wouldn't be moving in their sight line. Thanks to Frenchman Thomas Levet's 80 on Sunday, Perez's 309 was one stroke above last place.
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REACHING OUT: Mickelson has raved all week about the Minnesota golf community's support of the tournament, and he wondered Sunday why there's not a regular stop on the PGA Tour in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
“I think we, as the tour and as major championships, need to look at trying to bring golf to markets we haven't reached,” Mickelson said. “Such as here in Minneapolis, maybe in Seattle, like we're doing next week, and maybe Portland, which we haven't done yet. There seems to be so much support. I think that golf could really benefit if we were to move some tournaments around to some markets, especially if they are as supportive as this community is now.”
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DIVOTS: The PGA's top four finishers all get automatic qualifiers for next year's Masters. ... Tom Lehman led the four remaining Minnesotans by finishing at 5-over par 293. Cameron Beckman was next at 298, Berry finished at 302 and another club pro, Dave Tentis, came in at 304. ... Chris Riley was a host for Woods, who went to Stanford, on a recruiting visit to UNLV when Riley was a sophomore. So how come he couldn't get Woods signed? “My college coach wants to know that, too,” Riley said.
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Tiger's relationship with swing coach has changed
