CHARLOTTE, N. C., May 2 — I must be dreaming. It's 1 p.m., and the press room at the Wachovia Championship is packed with writers. And they're writing! I see rows of earnest journalists hunched over their laptops, pawing through interview transcripts and chugging their Diet Cokes. I see newspapermen, bloggers, magazine scribes, skywriters honing their material before they head for the airstrip. It's like the U.S. Open in here, and it's Wednesday.
Pinch me. Or simply remind me that Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan were paired in this morning's pro-am.
Hey, it's a story. Tiger and Michael have played together lots of times, but never like this, never as partners in a competition, never with thousands of fans lining the fairways, never with television crews and cameramen in hot pursuit. Afterwards, Woods admitted that he'd never played a round quite like it — a round in which, quite frankly, he played second-fiddle to another celebrity. "I've played with presidents," Tiger said, "but it's been away from the public eye."
This was beyond public. The two sports icons and their car-dealer pro-am partner drew so many spectators that I put away my notebook after a few holes, figuring that word-of-mouth would reach the rest of America before my story did.
I do have a few brief observations, which I'll share:
Jordan still looks cool. "Obviously his body is not in the shape that it was when he was playing at his peak," Tiger observed, but when the two men stood side by side, Jordan looked as if he could play four quarters and Woods looked as if he'd shrunk in the wash. Jordan had a slight sartorial edge, as well, a shiny earring accenting his white mock turtleneck and pleated gray cargo slacks.
Jordan sill rules in Carolina. Asked after the round if Michael had taken some of the crowd away from him, Tiger said, "Oh, he took all of it. It was great. I just hung back and let him kind of take the whole wave of people."
Woods still hits it farther than Jordan. Michael's backswing was shorter than I remember, and his driving distance shorter still — although direct comparisons were difficult, since Tiger and the other pros were hitting from tees 50 to 100 yards behind the amateurs. Woods explained that Jordan has lost hang time because "he's not being stretched by the trainers all the time. Golf, you have to be loose, you have to be strong, you've got to be fit, and there's a price to pay when you're not."
Jordan knows swing aids. On short shots and putts he let a long, unlighted cigar dangle from his lips, which is an excellent way to banish tightness and encourage a relaxed stroke. When driving from the tee, he placed the cigar on the ground, a few inches outside his ball, to confirm his alignment. (That would seem to be a breach of Rule 8-2a, but according to Rule 47-3c, "Alleged Infractions Reported by Sports Illustrated Writers," I can say that Michael Bamberger saw it, not me.)
After they finished, Jordan slipped away, leaving Woods to explain how much fun they'd had.
"Oh, man, we always have a great time, whether it's playing golf or playing cards or just hanging out. We always want to one-up one another. That's how we are, and I think that's one of the reasons we've been able to accomplish the things we've been able to accomplish."
Spoken like a true icon.
