You are David Duval or Phil Mickelson. You are considered a good golfer by everyone, great by some. You have length off the tee. You have touch around the green. You have game.
Even better, you are 29 or 30. You already have double-digit victories on the PGA Tour and you just now are entering your prime window to greatness. This is when you pass go and collect majors.
But there is a problem. There is a guy named Tiger Woods. He is younger. And he is better. He is not only the best of his generation, but he might be the best of anyone’s generation.
You are David Duval or Phil Mickelson and you appear to be doomed to settle for second place. You might be the Rolling Stones in the PGA scheme of things, but you are up against the Beatles. Can’t get no satisfaction, indeed.
“We can relate to that in Chicago with the Edmonton Oilers, New York Islanders and Montreal Canadiens,” said Doug Wilson, the former great defenseman who played in five conference finals series in his 15 seasons with the Blackhawks. “My brother Murray played for the Canadiens, and they knew they had the fastest go-kart on the track. The Islanders had seven or eight of the best players in the world. They knew it and they had a swagger. And the Oilers . . . I played against three dynasties.”
Montreal won four straight Stanley Cups from 1976 through 1979, the Islanders won four in a row from 1980 through ’83, and Edmonton won four Cups in five years in the mid-’80s.
Duval and Mickelson are playing against only one dynasty, but it might last for three decades. Duval and Mickelson just finished second and third, respectively, to Woods in a Masters that one of them seemingly would have won otherwise. But no one except Woods is winning anything big these days. He has won the last four majors, the so-called “Tiger Slam,” the only time that has been accomplished.
When Woods won last year’s British Open, he joined Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen as holders of career Grand Slams. At 24, he was the youngest to do it.
Now 25, four years younger than Duval and five younger than Mickelson, Woods already has won 27 tour events. When he won the U.S. Open in 2000 for his 20th victory, he became the youngest player to win that many times on the PGA Tour. Mickelson and Duval have yet to win that many, period.
Duval and Mickelson appear to be battling over who is the best player never to win a major.
“You watch Tiger and he knows he has an extra bullet,” Wilson said. “The other guys know it, and he knows they know it.”
How frustrating it must be for Duval and Mickelson to charge near the top finally, only to find a guy who is younger and better.
“They have to find a way around his mystique, his aura, his presence,” said White Sox broadcaster Hawk Harrelson, whose nine years in the major leagues and time on the PGA Tour give him an appreciation of the mental strength the competition demands. “He has the best presence I’ve ever seen. He’s majestic.
“Michael [Jordan] dominated those guys up here [pointing to his head]. Michael was the most dominant performer I’d ever seen. But Tiger has blown right by him. I think he’s greedy–in a good way. He’s not after money; it’s competition, winning.”
The comparison to Jordan is inevitable. A generation of the NBA’s best players repeatedly fought to get to the NBA Finals, only to encounter Jordan. Orlando Magic coach Doc Rivers thought about that as he watched the back nine of the Masters.
“There goes Karl Malone and Patrick Ewing, trying to win a title during the Jordan era,” Rivers said.
But that is not how Malone sees it. Athletes never see it as impossible.
“You keep trying,” said Malone, whose Utah Jazz lost the NBA title to Jordan’s Bulls in 1997 and ’98. “That’s why I keep coming back. You don’t ever quit. That’s why those guys keep coming back. You don’t stop just because you lose. You don’t stop because you lose one or two or three times. That’s the sign of a loser, a quitter. I’m not a quitter, and I’m sure those guys are not quitters. You just keep playing.”
If there is anyone who would know what it’s like to be in the final pairing without ever getting the trophy, it’s Marv Levy, the Hall of Fame coach from Chicago who got his Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowls only to lose every time. If anyone could map out a plan for Duval and Mickelson to deal with the vexing despair of losing at the highest level, it’s Levy.
“You mourn the loss, you own up to what happened, then you ask, `How can I close the gap?'” Levy said. “Yeah, he’s an immortal already, Tiger Woods is, but you have to keep asking, `How can I beat this guy?’ That keeps you from lying there in the fetal position.”
If it’s not the fetal position for some, it’s a futile position for others. Sox shortstop Royce Clayton remembers how the Texas Rangers he played with in the ’90s would bring a big, bad lineup into the playoffs against the New York Yankees, only to get sent home meekly. It played on the Rangers’ mind to ridiculous extremes.
“In spring training, the whole talk was preparation,” Clayton said. “We’d take our whole team to play them in Tampa. It was, `OK, this is the big day. We’re going to play the Yankees.’ This was in spring training. We go there and they’re looking at us like, `Are you guys holding tryouts?’ They don’t change their routine for us. They just play a couple innings and go about their business.”
The Yankees know what they do well, and they know how to get themselves ready to do it. That appears to be the advice for Duval and Mickelson from those who have faced the same kind of daunting challenge.
Despite Woods’ mind-numbing greatness, Duval and Mickelson remain an accomplished pair. Duval has won 12 times on tour, Mickelson 18. They have played on Ryder, Walker and Presidents cup teams. They have won millions of dollars and have been there on the last day in majors. Heck, Duval even shot a 59 and once displaced Woods atop golf’s computerized world rankings. They would seem to have no choice but to stick with what made them good enough to get there in the first place.
“That’s the only thing you know,” Malone said. “That’s what you fall back on. It’s easy to lose. You lose two or three times [and think], `It’s easy to lose this one.’ I’m not like that. Those guys aren’t like that. You just keep playing. I don’t think you allow yourself to think someone else is better than you are. When you do that, you’re beat already. Why even go out there?”
And yet, it still comes back to this: You’re David Duval or Phil Mickelson, you are in your prime winning years and you are among the best there is. But you might be up against the best ever. What do you do?
“Maybe,” Sox coach Joe Nossek said, “you try to be the second best ever.”
