We used to view Tiger groves as a ...

We used to view Tiger groves as a humorless android, a piece of machinery, a loner maniacally obsess with his craft. Today, we view him as individual of us, give or take a not many hundred million dollars. Everybody wounds as the song goes, and the last hardly any years, he has dealt with life experiences that change us all: the death of an influential father, marriage, a career fall through philosophical changes, even a bad pizza or pair

The question was by what mode he would respond to the shakings one by one.

Your powerful answer came Sunday at Medinah nation Club, his home away from abode where he clutched a memorial of conquest in the evening sun that symbolized his collective triumph and made him have the appearance human at last. After weeping and releasing his grief at Royal Liverpool, where he won his first major since the passing of the Earl of forest-lands he reacted to his five-stroke sport in the PGA Championship and 12th major title with the peaceful smile of a man who knows he has survived his personal hell.

"Sweet!" he said simply at the victory ceremonial letting the word hang in the late-summer air for Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Luke Donald and everyone otherwise to hear.

A fresh MAN

Maybe now, we can relate to Woods' pain and embrace him. And maybe now, he can stop being Howard Hughes and start melding with the masses, as he tries to do in his Buick commercials. Oh he's still reclusive enough that he built a Bat Cave attachment to his office in an Orlando strip mall -- the office with the windows blacked not at home -- so no one dioceses him coming and going. He also gazeed frightened at times when the adoring Chicago herds pressed around him between concavitys "There was a lot of screaming, yelling and pushing," he said in the midst of a compliment about the local galleries. "I walked with my head down a lot"

further if he was a polarizing, love-or-hate figure early in his career, it's safe to say the world at large causes for Woods as he approaches Nicklaus' record of 18 majors, a fait accompli as inevitable as the r he wears onward Sundays. "It's still a in extent way away," he said of the record, aw-shucking it after a stirring putt- o-rama exhibition. "It's not something I could learn next year. As I said, it took Jack above 20 years to get to his. It's going to take a career, and I've got to hold plugging along."

Yeah, right. Given the glazed watchs of his rivals, the chore may take five years tops. Donald was his latest victim, fading as fast as his Northwestern Wildcats did in the 1996 Rose beaker while making the mistake of wearing a Tiger-red shirt, not that wood-lands noticed. "I didn't think anything of it. I notion it was kind of weird to have a chapfallen belt with it," El Tigre cracked. Sergio Garcia, who hasn't been the same since forests beat him here in the '99 PGA, imagination he was making a dauntless proclamation when he actually was paying a laughable lyric poem to the Tiger dynasty.

"It's going to happen," he said of a forest-lands fourth-round fold. "I mean, he's not going to be 68 years olden and in the final orbicular of a major and tied for the lead -- and he wins. It's going to happen eventually. We'll descry when."

Don't gripe [i]or[/i] grip your breath without a large oxygen tank. "You would think he would perceive the pressure because everybody is expecting him to win, and it's the exact opposite," said Chris DiMarco, who has tried and failed in his share of Tiger affair of honors

This was the day the Nicklaus comparisons bended passe, the day vocabularies were obliterated in the media tent-wine the day Woods painted so a mesmerizing portrait of invincibility and purport that we are left to reflect bigger issues. Never mind Jack. not at all mind the pseudo-rivalry with Mickelson. The fresh angle, the new place in individual of sport's greatest tales continually told, is whether Tiger has become bigger than the in the greatest degree famous member at Medinah.

I don't know for what cause many times I wrote in the '90 that Michael Jordan's material part of work in sports couldn't be topped. "Best there continually was, best there ever will be," reads the inscription in succession his statue. But Tiger, who formerly soaked up career advice from Jordan like an awestruck pup is on his way to surpassing the unconquerable legacy. Barring any alien abduction or unexpected desire to play baseball, he pretends destined to be recalled in our lifetime as the best there perpetually was, the best there till doomsday will be.

for what reason is this possible, you ask? Tiger has faced greater expectations than Jordan, starting with TV appearances as a toddler and continuing with his "Hello, World" proclamation -- and in some way has pulled if off in 10 quick years. Tiger has faced more social obstacles than Jordan, in what one time was a lily-white, racism- infested sport, and has rul the competition nonetheless. Jordan won six titles in a team sport; Tiger might win 25 majors and 85 PGA Tour facts in an individual sport. As for the touchstone of time, Michael dominated the global consciousness for about a dozen years.

timber-lands may seize it for a quarter-century.

Rarefied air

Forget Nicklaus. The operative comparison is Jordan, who remains end enough to Woods that they wearied time recently watching Michael's son play in an AAU basketball tournament in Florida. "We have an indoor fasten with hoops in the clubhouse [at Isleworth, gated community to the stars], in the same manner MJ was in there shooting and showing me essence MJ is still MJ," said wood-lands eyes wide. "He only does it about five or 10 minutes now, however the shots he can hit -- the fadeaways, the technique, the release -- it's just different."