At the pizza place tonight, where they serve food at the bar, which is where I was sitting with my girlfriend, the guy next to me said to the bartender, “That Sox bet doesn’t look so good right now.” I couldn’t figure out what that bet was, but I bet it was made after the Yankees swept the Red Sox in five games at Fenway, and I bet the Red Sox will still make the playoffs, despite the carnage.
“Do you want to double Tiger’s bet for not winning Deutsche Bank?” the guy next to me continued. He had ordered chicken parmigiana and a beer when he walked in. The trash talk would last beyond his homemade salad.
The bartender went to another customer, maybe because he didn’t want to take a double offer, maybe because he didn’t want to bet against Tiger, maybe because he didn’t know it would be a good bet. . I dont know.
He came back close to us and the guy said, “He’s won four in a row.” The bartender went to the other end and filled a beer. “He has won four in a row?” I asked. My neighbor said, “Four. He lost the US Open.” I said, “I think he’s won five: the Western, the British Open, the…” He turned away from me and asked the bartender how many Tigers he’d won in a row. The bartender, still busy, raised his hand and spread his fingers. “You’re right,” said my neighbor. Although he wasn’t. Tiger finished T2 at the Western. It’s been four in a row since then. I’m not proud that I don’t know that; I should be able to hold my own in a very weird tavern discussion about golf, about Tiger’s scores. But, the fact that the bartender thought he too had won five in a row, and that the guy next to me was quick to agree, quick to doubt himself, gives some indication of Tiger’s streak now. It already looks like he’s won more in a row than he actually has.
“Why do you think he’s not going to win this week?” I asked the guy that he was right but he didn’t know. “Because he doesn’t know the course, it’s new to him.”
I’m more of a drive picker than horses for courses, but if it was the latter, I might have told my neighbor that I was pretty sure Tiger had done well in recent life of this tournament. He would have been right because in the three years Deutsche Bank has played at TPC Boston, Tiger finished T7 (’03), T2 (’04) and T40 last year, when he shot a 65 on Thursday, best round. of that day I would say that he does not have too many problems with the course.
The bartender has a 50-50 chance, and probably better, of winning with Tiger. With Sunday’s playoff win at the WGC event, in fact, he earned his fourth straight win and sixth of thirteen tournaments played this year. The “probably best” aspect is the four in a row, the fact that the 2000 Tiger, a version he had predicted we’d see earlier in the year, has now arrived. It’s possible he’ll improve on those flashy 2000 numbers by the time November rolls around, since he won 9 of 20 in 2000, and if he wins this year, he’ll have a higher winning percentage. The only question is whether this trip to Ireland against Deutsche Bank will catch up with him after a round or two. But I have to realize that since he survived a late charge from Stewart Cink last Sunday, he then took advantage of Cink’s inability to close it out with putts on the first two playoff holes, followed by a dart in the rain at the approach. from Cink in the sand on the third hole of the playoffs, who since winning despite his best game, feels pretty invincible right now, and may be thinking about Thanksgiving the way Warren Zevon thought about life : I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Jet lag? Tired? Not now.
In the little time left of this golf season, I’m thinking what I thought at the beginning of the year: everyone out of the pool, it’s their tournament to lose, which, the fact that I can say that, and it may be true. for four weeks now, given the fact that over 150 golfers are participating in any given tournament, it speaks to how absurd, ridiculous, and choose-your-adjective Tiger has been of late. He’s on a roll, a roll only one person has had in recent years — Vijay Singh — who won his nine in 2004, followed that campaign in which he briefly wrested the world No. 1 from Tiger with four he wins in 2005, but not much has been heard from him since.
Anyway, you’ve already figured out who I’d like to pick to win this week’s Deutsche Bank. At 5-4, put a half unit on Tiger to win.
In the one-on-one, he put the unit to finish above Adam Scott (2-5).
Last week: I picked Jim Furyk and Stuart Appleby outright because I thought they had a shot. Furyk finished a close third. I picked him head-to-head, too, over Lefty. That ended the weekend. So, it was a double win week.