THE CURSE OF COUNT DRACULA
Back in the 1980’s, before the California hard courts took their toll on my back and shins, the passion I now have for golf was focused on tennis, and I used to follow the Borg-McEnroe rivalry on the tennis tour the way I now follow Tiger Woods on the golf tour.
The difference, of course, is that it took two renowned athletes at the top of their game to round out the style of the complete tennis player I identified with -- one with the steely Zen calm and machine like ground strokes heavy with top spin in Borg, and the other with the knifing touch of the game’s best ever serve and volleyer in McEnroe -- whereas Tiger has everything from the long power game to the deft soft touch around the greens all wrapped up in one almost super-human character.
WHEN an athlete is as dominant in his sport as a Tiger Woods, it’s hard to imagine that an athlete of a different time could have had an equal fear factor, dominance, or ability to intimidate. But both Borg and McEnroe had it. For a few years straight, Borg was the consensus “greatest athlete on the planet,” named so even by the likes of football, basketball, and baseball players. His appearance walking out of a locker room onto a court was just as striking as seeing Tiger’s chiseled physique assemble on the first tee.
And yet, while I was watching a recent Golf Channel show on Tiger as the most intimidating golfer ever -- just before flipping over to a pre-tournament report on tennis’s US Open -- I was reminded of the way a couple of points within individual matches -- summed up by one comment from an astute observer of the sport at the time -- ended up marking the end of the Borg-McEnroe era of dominance in tennis.
FOR McEnroe, it was an exchange at net with Boris Becker, the big blond German kid who seemed to come out of nowhere like Robert Shaw in “From Russia With Love” at the US Open. It was a lightning fast click-click-click-fffft rally, eyeball to eyeball -- the kind McEnroe always won -- but Becker took the point with a dive and a backhand slicing cross court drop shot that literally froze McEnroe in disbelief.
Becker went on to take the set and the match, and afterward his coach at the time, Ion Tiriac, who was known affectionately as the Count Dracula of the tennis world because of his own intimidating appearance, gave a tv interview that was widely credited as marking the beginning of McEnroe’s downfall from the world’s No. 1 position in tennis.
When asked about the match and why Becker had been able to prevail, Tiriac smiled and said, “It’s tough to accept when a guy’s been on top the way he has, but McEnroe can’t come to the net on just his reputation anymore.”
You could cut the air with a knife as Tiriac grinned into the CBS camera, and the comment quickly ran around the Flushing tennis complex and indeed the entire tennis world.
And sure enough, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Players who had been dominated by McEnroe at the net as if they were flies to his swatter suddenly began to pass him cross court, up the line, and with topspin lobs right over his head.
And it wasn’t long before Johnny Mac’s racquet turned into an announcer’s microphone.
WHY do I bring this up in a golf blog in 2009?
Because I think if Tiger Woods doesn’t step up big here at the end of this season and crush the on-comers even in the dumb format of the so-called “playoffs,” that he’s inviting his own dethroning as golf’s great intimidator.
Not enough credit was given to Y.E. Yang for standing up to Woods -- a second time -- and beating him soundly at his own game -- a second time -- at the PGA at Hazeltine. You wouldn’t know it from listening to American announcers, but Yang had beaten Tiger before in a head to head match in Asia. And in the same way -- by showing an utter indifference to Tiger’s intimidation factor. At Hazeltine, it was as if Yang was smiling Ion Tiriac’s smile about Tiger and his reputation when taking the lead into a Sunday final round, and smiling it directly into Tiger’s face.
AND then Heath Slocum follows it up by pulling a Tiger on Tiger and dropping that putt on 18 at the Barclay’s last week -- also right in Tiger’s face.
No apologies, no intimidation -- it was just like when Becker faced down McEnroe with but three feet to separate him from the whites of McEnroe’s eyes.
And both of these 2009 golfers enjoyed the way it felt!
LIKE a lot of true Tiger lovers, I felt some disappointment, some sadness in both results.
But I also remembered the camera shot of Tiriac nodding and smiling from the stands when Becker won that one point against McEnroe.
It was a knowing look.
The look of a man who had seen greatness come and greatness go.
The way it always does.
AND in my opinion, Tiger Woods now faces the challenge of this stage of his career.
He has to step up and step down on whoever he faces in the remainder of the 2009 season if he isn’t to look at a wave of guys coming at him next season to get in line as one of the ones who took him down from the top.
No one has dared speak the curse of Tiriac’s Dracula on Tiger yet, but for the first time you know there are a bunch of guys at least thinking it.
This guy can be beaten…
He can’t come to net just on his reputation…
Better shut ‘em down, Tiger. Before one of them roars it.
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Richard Lees is on The Board of Directors of The Shivas Irons Society, and President of Richard Lees Capital Management in Los Angeles ( www.RichardLees.com ). STREAMERS attempts to reveal bits and pieces of one golfer's ”fascination.” As Shivas Irons puts it, “Gowf is a place to practice fascination, and as fascination is practiced, a capacity develops to put forth streamers of heart power for the ball to fly on."