THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- The maturation of Tiger Woods
includes one new aspect of his game: he's become boring.
The trained eye can still see greatness from a difficult shot
that Woods can make look easy. Perhaps his most impressive round of
golf was Saturday at the U.S. Open when he hit the first 17 greens
in regulation at Oakmont (and had to settle for a 69).
And there is no denying the results.
Woods again dwarfed the competition this year with seven PGA
Tour victories, his 13th career major, skipping the opening playoff
event and still taking the drama out of the FedEx Cup, and
collecting two more World Golf Championships to make him 14-of-25
against the world's best.
But where was the spectacular shot that defines a special year?
One exercise to wrap up a season is to ask the major champions
for the shot that people remember about their victory, and a shot
that might get overlooked but was meaningful to them.
Two years ago, it was Woods' chip-in for birdie on the 16th hole
at the Masters, which made a U-turn and hung on the lip before
falling. Last year was a 4-iron he holed out for eagle on the 14th
hole at Royal Liverpool.
What will people remember about his victory this year in the PGA
Championship?
"Hmmm," Woods said, contemplating almost long enough to grow a
goatee.
He settled on a shot he missed, a 15-foot birdie putt on the
18th hole of the second round at Southern Hills that spun 270
degrees out of the cup and forced him to settle for a 63, tying a
major championship record.
"If you think about it, I had a chance to break a record," he
said. "Otherwise, I didn't do anything the entire week that stood
out, except to be consistent. But I think the nature of the course
lent itself to that."
As for the best shot, Woods didn't hesitate.
"The drive on 16," he said. "I just flushed it."
Woods' lead was as large as five in the final round, but it was
down to one over Woody Austin -- until he birdied the 15th hole.
Then came the tightest driving hole at Southern Hills, and Woods
hit it so pure that he twirled the club, the sure sign of a perfect
strike.
"Woody was ahead of me and I didn't know what he was doing on
17, which is a birdie hole," Woods said. "I needed to put that
ball in play and not make bogey. I'll tell you what, to step up
there have to put it in play ... and I just piped it down the
middle."
That was as exciting as it got for Woods, one of the most
exciting players in the game.
As he has gotten older -- and better -- Woods has so much more
control of his game that he rarely has to do anything dramatic.
There is no 6-iron out of the bunker, over the water and right
at the flag with the tournament on the line. Or a 3-iron over the
trees to 15 feet despite his legs pressed up against the side of a
sand trap. Or a 7-iron gouged out of the rough on the sixth hole of
Pebble Beach that reaches the green in two. Or the hole-in-one that
nearly caused a riot in Phoenix.
"He's playing more from the correct side of the fairway now,"
caddie Steve Williams said. "He doesn't need anything dramatic."
That supports an adage in golf that some of the most thrilling
shots usually follow some of the worst. One reason Arnold Palmer
and Seve Ballesteros were so exciting to watch was because of the
spots from which they played, parking lots included.
That used to be Woods, too.
"All you guys watched me in college golf and amateur golf, and
even early tour days, and I'm up for any shot, really," Woods
said. "I believe I can pull off any shot. But there's also being
smart about it, as well. If I don't pull it off, I can make 6, 7,
8. And those were the scores I was making, instead of being a
little more conservative.
"It's learning how to play over a 72-hole period, not just one
hole."
Woods wasn't the only major champion this year whose signature
shot was tough to find.
Masters champion Zach Johnson was torn between his 12-foot
birdie putt on the 16th hole in the final round, or his chip from
off the 18th green that settled a foot away for par to keep his
two-shot lead.
The shot that won't get any recognition came at No. 11.
"It was a cut 3-iron around the trees in a right-to-left wind
with the water, obviously on the left," Johnson said. "I don't
hit a cut except when I mis-hit it. But I hit it in there to 30
feet, two putts for par. That's when I knew I was doing something
right."
Most people likely remember the 7-iron that Angel Cabrera hit to
3 feet on the 15th hole at Oakmont to build his final-round lead at
the U.S. Open, allowing him to drop shots on the next two holes
without losing the lead.
However, the big-hitting Argentine will always remember the
drive on No. 18 that found the fairway.
"It was one of the best shots I've hit in my life," he said.
"It was what I needed to win the U.S. Open."
Finding the signature shot for Padraig Harrington is messy, but
so was the finish at Carnoustie. He figures it was either his
50-yard pitch over Barry Burn to 5 feet for double bogey that
ultimately got him into a playoff, or his 7-iron to 10 feet for
birdie on the first playoff hole against Sergio Garcia.
But his favorite shot came Friday morning left of the eighth
green.
"The ball ran down to a tight, hard lie on a downslope, and I
had a pot bunker between me and the flag," he said. "I chipped it
as pure as can be to a foot. It was my best strike ever. It was
ever so pleasing."