Tiger vs. the field

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Jack Nicklaus ambled down the 17th fairway around noon yesterday wearing a lime shirt with a leprechaun green collar and the sublime smile of a champion who has seen it all.

Nicklaus joined Gary Player, Bernhard Langer and Germany's Martin Kaymer for a practice round on the eve of a tournament Nicklaus will never play again. A modest Augusta National gallery saw him coming, his arrival announced by his perceptible limp and his subtle country-club wave.

More than anything, Nicklaus was warming up for the par-3 contest. More than anything, he wanted to finish the nine-hole exhibition before his hip or his patience gave out.

In the chaotic fashion of a practice round, the players hit extra approach shots in unison and worked on assorted chips and struck putts from all angles, many to imaginary pin locations that will grow holes before the Masters ends. Nicklaus knocked his ball onto the green, about 10 feet from the actual hole, and drilled the putt with the flagstick still in the cup.

Perhaps 100 fans clapped, politely. Nicklaus took the ball from the hole and lifted his hand to waist level again, acknowledging the acknowledgement. He walked to the back of the green, dropped a ball and hit a couple of chips, killing time while the other three worked the green's remote edges.

Player, the 72-year-old troubadour who will break Arnold Palmer's record with his 51st Masters start today, blasted out of the front bunker. Langer hit from the left bunker, his first shot bouncing past Nicklaus, who playfully dodged the ball and chided Langer in his sharply nasal Midwestern voice.

Langer grinned and replied that he was merely playing clear of the golf bag Nicklaus' caddie had left in the way.

Langer, who insists he can compete for his third Masters jacket at 50, retrieved those balls and dropped a white tee on the green and proceeded to the back fringe. His first chip hit the tee. The second rolled a foot left of the tee. His third stopped an inch short of the tee.

"That's pretty good," Nicklaus said. "Wait a couple of years and they'll roll back to you."

He wiped the smirk off his face and strolled down the slope toward the 18th, fans chattering and clapping as he passed. Nicklaus raised his arm halfway and turned his left wrist a couple of times.

"Goodbye," he said with a cool hint of finality, the last syllable drifting away in the gentle spring breeze.

Nicklaus waved goodbye to contender status after 1998, when he awakened hibernating Masters juices, shot 68 on Sunday and tied for sixth, four strokes behind Mark O'Meara. He won the last of 18 major championships here in 1986, leading the masses through the pines in hideous plaid pants, stirring up dust clouds and turning fantasies into unfathomable reality at 46.

That's where golf's grandest personal achievement rests today, 18 majors. The crown wobbles a bit from detectable tremors as Tiger Woods romps through his golfing prime - or golfing prime as defined by history written before anyone other than Player took nutrition and weightlifting seriously.

Woods, who turned 32 in December, has won 13 majors, including four Masters, and keeps getting better. He won two majors in 2005, two majors in 2006 and the PGA last year, when he tied for second at the Masters and U.S. Open. Nicklaus won six majors after his 33rd birthday, including two in 1975 and two in 1980.

Woods' recent surge - eight wins in his past 10 starts - fits into a broader pattern of something way beyond mortal warming. Woods has won 17 of his past 31 tournaments, beginning with the 2006 British Open.

This year, everyone expects Woods to contend for every title he chases. He arrives at this Masters an even bet against Team World Golf. That's Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and the rest of the field. The proposition seems utterly absurd by any measure.

"It is, a bit," Els said. "In professional sports in this day and age, that's taking it very far. But he's done incredible things."

Els considers the calendar slam definitely within Woods' reach. Woods won four straight majors from the 2000 U.S. Open through the 2001 Masters, and media outlets of all sorts have identified 2008 as the year Woods might win the first professional Grand Slam in a single season. He feeds the ravenous media machine with a self-motivating challenge, calling the slam "easily within reason."

His reasoning: "Because I've done it before. I've won all four in a row. I think I'm the only guy who has done that, modern configuration."

Bobby Jones founded the Masters four years after completing the only calendar slam, the 1930 British Open, U.S. Open, British Amateur and U.S. Amateur.

Ben Hogan won the first three majors in 1953 but didn't compete in the PGA. Palmer won the first two majors in 1960 but lost the British Open by a stroke to Kel Nagle. Nicklaus won the first two majors in 1972, when he was 32, but lost the British Open by a stroke to Lee Trevino.

Nicklaus understands the complexities and pressures of the task, which dominated his mentality during his prime. He figures that Woods could navigate the tricky route, but only if everything goes just right.

Mickelson concurs. "I think it would be pretty cool to see it done," he said. "The last tournament or two, there would be some incredible pressure."

Woods puts the pressure on himself right out of the gate, a curious and enticing twist for golf psychologists to overanalyze.

At the 2008 Masters, the birds still sing from the tall pines and yesterday's kings still hit practice shots for posterity, but the equation has changed radically.

It's one man against the field, and most folks seem inclined to take the man.

Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.