Finally, the players who passed Woods were almost all guys who were supposedly capable of closing the gap on Tiger but hadn't. Goosen, 39, hasn't won a full-field stroke-play event in America since the 2004 U.S. Open and lately has been struggling with the aftereffects of laser eye surgery. Furyk won the Canadian Open last summer but hadn't had a top 12 finish in his six previous starts and reportedly has been tinkering with the belly putter. (He used a conventional model at Doral.) Singh, the last man to dethrone Woods as No. 1 in the World Ranking, is finally seeing positive results as some swing changes kick in and already has four top fives this year. And then there was Ogilvy, the thoughtful 30-year-old Australian whose game didn't go to the next level after he won the 2006 U.S. Open but whose family did. Ogilvy and his wife, Juli, have had two children in the last 15 months.
"It's pretty satisfying to win a big one like this," Ogilvy said. As for stopping Tiger's streak, he added, "I'm very glad I did it. And it's a nice place to do it because he's owned this course in the past."
A long-term return to form by any or all of the above players would suddenly spice up a show that Woods has monopolized since his PGA Championship victory last August. Overanalyze Tiger's lost weekend at Doral if you must, but it appeared to be simply a case of the putts not falling. Tiger's frustration boiled over on Sunday at the 9th tee when a photographer's motor-drive camera fired prematurely. A highly annoyed Woods hissed, "Not on my swing!" during his one-handed follow-through and went on to make a bogey. When darkness halted the final round, Woods was a distant five shots back with seven holes to play.
Still, what happened at Doral is not going to change Woods's status as the overwhelming favorite at next month's Masters. "You don't get remembered for the number of wins in your career," Tiger reminded reporters last week. "It's the number of wins in major championships."
Keep those numbers in mind, then — 64 and 13, respectively. To think he's not going to add to those totals this year would really be March Madness.
