How many times in a round of golf do you think Tiger Woods hears his name? A thousand, two thousand, ten thousand maybe. Perhaps he doesn’t hear it at all.
Perhaps Woods is so deep in that famous zone by now, that it is all just white noise to him. His is one of the greatest feats of concentration on the planet.
We think of Formula 1 drivers, or opening batsmen in Test cricket. We marvel at the way the best penalty takers or kickers in rugby can dial out the noise around them.
Tiger Woods is bombarded with screams from the crowd but he somehow manages to ignore it
Yet there is nothing like Woods. To walk a course parallel to him is to be bombarded with calls, screams, pleas, declarations of love, lame attempts at humour, meaningless implorations, a symphony of idiot noise that would torture an individual without a coping mechanism. Woods somehow stays blank.
He does not engage, never acknowledges. When he pumps a fist it is for him alone. And some find him aloof. They don’t get it. He has to be, for his sanity. If he was aware of the clamour around him, if he opened his ears, he couldn’t function.
No-one could. Woods has to pretend he is alone on the course. He must be invisible even when everybody it talking at him.
Woods shot sub-par in his opening round on Thursday. Only once has he done that at a US Open and finished outside the top three. His early scoring on Friday gave hope for a second sub-par round.
On both occasions he has played the first 36 at a US Open like that, he has won: in 2000 and 2002. Could he win here? It is not beyond the realms of possibility. His greatest major win was here, 19 years ago. He knows the course. He plays it smart. All that let him down on Friday was the putter.
Starting at the 10th, he birdied one of his first eight holes; he could have birdied four. Sometimes it was his misread, on other occasions the margins were tiny. On the 12th, one more roll would have done it, from distance.
He knew it, too. He knew that, tighter on the green, he could have been breathing down the neck of leader and playing partner Justin Rose, perhaps intimidating him as he did the field at the Masters.
Woods won the US Open when he has played sub-par in the first 36: in 2000 (L) and 2002 (R)
And everywhere he went, as he tried to get that magic momentum going, his name echoed around the Pacific coastline: Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger…
Ten thousand times in a round? Could be. If he’s in contention, or at that part of the day when the beer has been flowing and everyone’s a comedian. It happens hundreds of times on each hole, certainly.
Come on Tiger, or Big Cat, or on rare occasions Mr Woods, if it’s a little kid shouting and his dad has told him to be respectful. And it’s harmless. No-one gives him a hard time about the past.
A few might mention gambling their life savings on his prowess, but no-one believes that and Tiger can’t be responsible for individual
