Will Someone, Anyone Challenge Tiger?

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- It would be nice to think it was just a coincidence, that roughly nine seconds after Tiger Woods' name went up on the leaderboard, the other golfers suddenly couldn't put the ball in the hole. It got a little windy. It was so hot that the greens were fried into concrete. Some of these guys were no-names playing over their heads.

Could those be the reasons? Well, partly.

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But you get the feeling that everyone had just been waiting to fold, waiting for Woods. On Sunday, Woods will go into the final round of the Players Championship in second place, five strokes behind leader Alex Cejka, the one guy who is putting up a fight.

How will the field do against Woods Sunday with his every shot being posted ominously on the board?

Well, imagine a great fighter stepping into the ring, and the guy in the other corner waiting for the bell to ring just decides to fall down now and get it over with. That's what the rest of the field did on Saturday. And the thing is, Woods still isn't playing well. He's all over the place, especially off the tee. On the 11th hole, he drove behind a tree, was forced to hit his second shot lefty, then sliced his third.

On 18, he teed off far right, then watched his second shot slide off toward the water, and he stared and waited and waited ...

"We didn't see any splash," he said, "so that was good."

Come on, other golfers. WAKE UP! Woods is there for the taking. You can't just be afraid of his name, when his game isn't there.

I mean, it's always good for golf when he's in the final group, wearing the red shirt, pumping his fist, winning. But the rest of the field might want to consider getting a little self-respect.

"I was trying to hang in there," Cejka said, "like a pit bull."

Yes, he did it. He was the one.

But the questions to him afterward were about his chances Sunday.

Remember, at 11-under, he has a five-stroke lead.

"Yeah, it's going to be tough," Cejka said. "He's the best player."

Frankly, it was not a glorious day for the other golfers on tour. The conditions made the course rough, but the biggest condition was Woods.

Yet he's playing some of the worst golf he can possibly play.

So the story is half amazement that he can do that and be ready to win what golfers call the fifth major anyway. How great must this guy really be? I've said the past few days that he looks like a superhero without his powers. In some ways, it's even more impressive watching him beat everyone up without them.



Woods, who shot a 2-under, 70 Saturday and is 6-under for the tournament, has been doing this on guts and stubbornness, always scrambling to recover from his bad shots.

"That's how you're supposed to play, isn't it?" he said.

But the other half of this is a condemnation of the other guys. Woods said, "I'm not that far off," and hinted that he might be one day, one hold from everything clicking.

"If I have an understanding of my misses, yeah, I can figure it out," he said. "This week I have an idea of what I need to. It's just a matter of doing it."

At this point, he's just bluffing, pretending to be his usual self. And that's good enough for the fear factor to set in to everyone else.

Does that factor really still exist?

"I'm sure it does," said Daniel Chopra after his round with Woods Saturday.

"Yeah, yeah," said Retief Goosen, who's tied with Woods. "Obviously, you always know he's going to be out there to try and catch you. But then again, if the leaders start making birdies, he's feeling a bit depressed if he's falling way behind. You don't expect anybody to be running away on this golf course."

Actually, Cejka has run away. You don't notice because the assumption is he's going to fold Sunday.

Be honest.

"It's going to be a difficult day for Alex tomorrow," said Ian Poulter, who also is in the six-way tie with Woods. "He's playing with Tiger. He's got a five-shot lead. He's going to be having dinner tonight thinking 11-under par should be good enough.

"And if you go out there with that mindset, it's going to be difficult."

Cejka, who's 38, has never won on the PGA Tour. So this is going to be new for him, this pressure, this crowd, this spotlight.

I can't wait to see the buildup: the golf prodigy vs. the guy who fled Czechoslovakia when he was 9 with his father. NBC already hit us with this sappy stuff, playing ominous music and turning the picture to black and white to show about his harrowing childhood escape, involving running, swimming, biking, everything.

Don't buy NBC's embarrassing attempt to tug at your heart. I mean, it happened 30 years ago, and Cejka thought they were just going on vacation. And since then, he hasn't exactly been washing dishes for a living and struggling to get by. Cejka has made more than $5 million, mostly on the European tour.

The honest contrast is good enough, and while this will be new for Cejka, it also will be a test for Woods. Since coming back from reconstructive knee surgery, he has won once. But he has also slumped, and failed to come through in crunch-time.

His defenders point out all his top-10 finishes, as if that's a measure for Woods.

It seems a given that he'll charge and win Sunday, but if he doesn't, then even he might have to admit that something truly is wrong.

Wrong, in superhero terms, anyway.