SPECTATOR SPORT
Ambition that burns bright
Simon Barnes
THAT sport reveals rather than builds char- acter is the basis on which modern profes- sional sport has its being. What, then, did we learn of Tiger Woods as he loped away with the Open golf championship last weekend?
Amazingly, we learnt almost nothing. That fine, exotic and increasingly recognis- able face gives nothing away: born of a black American father and a Thai mother, he walks through golfs vale of maya with the enigmatic and faintly sinister expression that you see on the better Buddhas.
This was a victory that confirmed how far Woods has moved beyond the common run of golfers: his fourth major tourna- ment — three of the titles now held con- currently — won at the age of 24. He now receives the traditional accolade of the sporting genius: people say that his domi- nance is bad for the game.
He is rich beyond imagination, successful beyond belief, and unsated. Nike has gam- bled heavily on Woods, and he is emerging as the new Michael Jordan: a commercial emblem representing not his own sport but sport itself. Like Jordan, Woods is the per- fect role model: pleasant, polite, neatly turned-out, and never at a loss for an appropriate blandness. Role model is a negative term: it means nothing to offend, a blameless private life, a knack of avoiding rows, nothing for any- one to write about or even to think about — save his oceanic talent, of course.
There was just one vignette of Woods's nature in that epic final day when he demoralised the world's finest golfers with a round of staggering authority. He went into the penultimate hole with a lead so massive that defeat was completely out of the question.
Then he made a small mistake and lost a shot. And, for once, he let something show in the set of his mouth. He was absolutely furious with himself. He went on to make par at the final hole, and exulted when the last putt rolled in as if the championship had hung on it.
But he had won by eight shots. He was seeking things beyond mere victory: he wanted all four of his rounds in the tourna- ment to be under 70, and he wanted to end without anticlimax. And, for just one moment, he looked disappointed in victory — that blemish on the previous hole had got to him. He could have done better.
He has won all four majors by a total of 36 strokes, and he could have done better. In his brief mouthing of victory blandness- es, he spoke about his need to improve. It is as if the man were made entirely of tal- ent. His talent consumes him so utterly that there is nothing left but blandness for the rest of the world. Yet he is no tormented genius: he seems at peace with himself, if a man with an outrageous and vaulting ambi- tion can be at peace.
But then this is not an ambition that nags and torments. Rather, it is one that he is very sure of. Woods performs 600 sit- ups every day of his life. In a sport that does not insist on fetishistic personal fit- ness, this is a measure not of his fitness but of his ambition.
Who is this man? Impossible to say. All that is clear is that he wants to demonstrate further, again and again, just how vast the gap is between him and everybody else.
Previous page
