David Barrett

Golf with David
April 13th, 2008

Long-time golf journalist David Barrett is covering the Masters for us this week.

- GolfObserver editors

A dream fulfilled, a dream deferred

Trevor Immelman has been dreaming of becoming a major champion since he was five years old. On Sunday at Augusta, the 28-year-old from South Africa made that a reality by winning the Masters.

Photo: © Don Emmert/AFP Trevor Immelman stepped up to major status on Sunday.

Tiger Woods has already lived that dream 13 times at age 32. But even he can still dream. That must be why he announced on his website this January that the calendar year Grand Slam was "easily within reason" this year.

Woods had already won four majors in a row in 2000-1, and he felt that he was playing better than ever. But even if you're the best player in the world by a large margin--and on track to becoming the best ever--it's a tall order to win every major.

There are just too many things that can happen. In this case, it was a week when he couldn't get the putts to fall. Shockingly, the problem got worse on the back nine, just when he needed to make them to put pressure on Immelman.

Conversely, perhaps the most impressive thing about Immelman's performance on Sunday was his putting in the clutch. Considered to have one of the game's best swings, putting has been what has held Immelman back. In fact, statistically he ranked near the bottom of the PGA Tour in 2007 and again so far in 2008.

On Sunday it seemed like those problems reared their head again when he missed a three-foot birdie putt at the seventh and three-putted for a bogey on the eighth.

But on the ninth, he stared down a big-breaking eight-foot putt for par and made it. And he followed that with another huge par save, making a 20-footer on the 11th. With his fellow competitors dropping like flies around him, those putts enabled him to take a four-stroke advantage to the last seven holes, and it was enough of a cushion to get him to the clubhouse.

The victory gives Immelman a leg up on the other 20-somethings with potential for golf greatness. In fact, he is now the only player in his 20s to own a major title. Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Aaron Baddeley, and Justin Rose are still searching for theirs, as are any number of American hopefuls.

Where will Immelman go from here? Probably as far as his putter can take him. His ball-striking is certainly top-notch. And winning on these slick Augusta greens should certainly boost his confidence with the putter.

While he has something that Garcia, Scott, et. al., desperately want, one major doesn't annoint him as the man who is going to step up and challenge Woods on a regular basis. He still hits some loose shots under pressure; witness his awful iron shot into the water on 16 and his bogeys on the last three holes even in a victory at the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa last year. But let's give him credit for this--in his first time in serious contention at a major, with winds and pressure swirling around him, he held it together well enough to beat the best player in the game by three strokes.

Photo: © Don Emmert/AFP Tiger Woods settled for his second straight runner-up finish in Augusta.

As for Woods, the Grand Slam frenzy is over, but he will still be an overwhelming favorite in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. (He now has three wins and three seconds in the last seven majors.)

On Sunday, Woods said of his Grand Slam statement that "I learned my lesson with the press. I'm not going to say anything."

The lesson for the press should be to keep things in perspective. Woods' winning streak of five in a row on the PGA Tour was as responsible for the media hubbub on the Grand Slam as Woods' statement.

When Woods is winning, there's a tendency to feel like he's virtually unbeatable. But people tend to forget that the game has ups and downs, even for the best player in the world, and there are weeks when his putting or his swing will be a bit off, the ball won't bounce his way, or somebody else will play great. On the other hand, just because he goes a few weeks without winning doesn't mean he's in a slump. Trust me, he'll find a way to get out of it.

Just like he won't win every tournament, or every major, he enters. The calendar year Grand Slam? Count me as a skeptic (but also count me as one who thinks his "Tiger Slam" was equally as great an accomplishment). But I wouldn't put it past him.

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