Tiger aura burns even brighter in the flesh

Sideline Cut/Keith Duggan:Although traditionally suspicious about golf - vis-à-vis the point of its very existence, not so much a good walk spoiled as a good field wasted - this column left Mount Juliet as happy and punch drunk as everybody else who turned up to breathe the same air as Tiger Woods.

"So, did you feel the aura?," asked my friend. "'Fraid so," I responded. Because it was true. The man is an opiate. Maybe it is partly due to the hype, the fact he is already enshrined as the planet's first billion-dollar-athlete in waiting, the way he is said to be as famous as Ali was in his prime. The old advertising slogan used for Michael Jordan, a friend of Woods and a kindred spirit, one of the few people alive who probably genuinely understand him - This Man Doesn't Live on Earth, He Just Turns Up on Game Day - applies to the golfer now.

So when Woods does actually present himself before us in the flesh, a shimmering, ebony mirage, there is little to do but gape, slack-jawed and childlike and follow him with feet of clay as he floats through a demonstration of golf that is just beyond the borders of the comprehension of the intelligentsia of the game, let alone those with a passing interest.

It seems that golf critics - understandably - abandoned trying to evaluate Woods after he demolished the accepted horizons of the game in the US Open of 2000 and joined the masses to watch the fantastic parade, albeit from the best seats.

Instead, the efforts have concentrated on trying to come to grips with the man away from the course, to try and find some common ground with the phenomenon as a young, hip and wealthy American male. But Woods has kept the curtains drawn on his inner nature since 1997, when he gave a great and unguarded interview to GQ in which he was funny and a bit crude and totally likeable.

Five years later, after his opening round of 65 on a day of heavenly sunshine in Kilkenny - he gives a press performance of such ease and grace and polish - and detachment - that you half believed Earl's rambling old prophesy that his son Eldrick would one day change the course of humanity.

Tiger, famously, has this smile that is a dentist's wet dream and he casually dispensed it at the blessed like so much candy while responding to questions. And when Tiger smiles at you, you stay smiled at. Because his face is so solemn and thoughtful in repose, the smile, inherited from his mother, is so warm and real that it actually seems like a gift.

The big news from the 20 minutes he spoke was, of course, he would prefer to win at Mount Juliet tomorrow than to triumph with team USA at The Belfry next week. While cautious in his reply and staying as close as he could to his preferred state of Swiss neutrality when it comes to anything that could be construed as an "issue", Woods remained true to himself.

It should be no surprise he wants the individual victory more. The whole point of Woods, surely, is he is all alone, the Supreme Being of the stick and ball game.

His remarks on the reason for his choice brought to mind his justification for skipping the ceremony for Payne Stewart at that 2000 competition in Pebble Beach when he said, "I felt going would be more a deterrent for me during the tournament, because I don't want to be thinking about it ."

Because even Woods' powers of concentration must have been bashed by the genuinely surreal circumstances of Stewart's sad passing. Death and Golf have never been regular bedfellows (except for the octogenarians who snuff it after making a birdie on the 10th at their perfumed country club, which is, no matter how you look at it, a damn lucky way to sign your final card). The unapologetic excuse offered by Woods was interpreted as unfeeling but the guess here is Woods mourned Stewart in his own way and also Stewart himself would have doffed one of his kooky hats in support of Woods' stance. The man was there to do what the world at large has accepted he was born to do; win the tournament, fulfil his legacy.

He has immersed himself in playing against the history and the nature of the sport for so long now he can only get so involved in the challenge of a team tournament against Europe. That he would take a tournament win over the stars and stripes glory is not due to selfishness or lack of patriotism - Woods often comes across as robustly American in attitude - but purely down to his celebrated discipline. There is only room for so much.

The most common remarks I heard about Tiger at Mount Juliet were: 'It must be strange to be him' or 'I wouldn't be him.' Of course, for all of us there is precious little danger of that but the sentiment is natural, because most rational people would be frightened silly if they found themselves exposed to life in Woods' shoes even for an instant. On a planet of billions, the emphasis on his existence in the pantheon is absurd and possibly unfair (on him) and also inevitable.

But it's his lot and wow, does he take it in his stride. Watching Tiger Woods walking up the last fairway of Mount Juliet on a day like a vision from Milton's Paradise works, a couple of thoughts struck. Firstly, it is impossible to imagine him ever being old. And also, let a great opponent come along before that happens. For all the combined talent of Woods' generation, they have not yet given the game one consistent or recognisable rival. Give him his Joe Frazier. We need to see Tiger pitted in an epic series of duels against another human, not against dusty history or the records he is closing in on.

He is just so far out there right now. That was the lasting thought. When he lined up his last stroke on the 18th, a trail of followers stretched back as far as the eye could see. People were magnetised by the sleek and utterly calm figure in all black. There was perfect silence when he putted and if the rest of us had all been erased during those few seconds while he concentrated on the rolling white ball, if he had looked up to find himself completely alone on the golf course, he probably would not have been surprised. Because that is the way he must feel anyway.