Tiger Time: The wonder of an American hero.

Sometime last season, I e-mailed a friend of mine, an ex-pro golfer and a keen student of the game. "Are we ready to concede that Tiger is the best ever?" I asked. His answer was slightly ambiguous; I couldn't tell whether he was being sincere or sarcastic. So I asked for a clarification. "Oh, let me be perfectly clear," he replied. "Nicklaus in his heyday couldn't carry Tiger's clubs. Really."

Now, my friend and I were Nicklaus worshipers from way back-we still are. When it comes to Nicklaus, we are dangerously close to violating the First Commandment. So acknowledging the truth about Tiger came hard. Jack Nicklaus-this is gospel in golf-dominated his sport as no other athlete ever dominated any sport. I once began a piece about Nicklaus roughly this way: Boxing folks can talk about Louis versus Ali; baseball people can talk about Cobb and Ruth and Mays (or whomever); tennis people can have a high time about Laver and Sampras; but in golf, there's nothing to discuss.

What's more, no one else was ever supposed to dominate the game. Nicklaus was supposed to be the last giant, the last player ever to make the others quake, the last to win predictably. You see, "parity" had arrived: That was the big buzzword on Tour. There were now thirty, forty-maybe sixty guys who could win in any given week. Golf instruction-swing science-had equalized things. Advances in equipment had equalized things. Conditioning, nutrition, etc., had equalized things. If a guy won, say, three tournaments in a season, that would be practically a freak, and the fellow would be Player of the Year, for sure. We would never see anything close to Nicklaus again.

Furthermore, his mark of 18 professional majors-twenty majors, if you counted his two U.S. Amateurs (and most of us did, because we loved that round, awesome number)-was an inviolable record. It would stand forever. It was the most unapproachable record in golf.

All of this needs to be remembered, because people forget. I've seen this in my own (not terribly long) lifetime. When I was young, the greatest record in baseball-the one that would live unto eternity-was Lou Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive games. That, all the experts said, was the one mark no one would ever reach. But then, when Cal Ripken closed in on it, they changed. They cheated. Now they said it was Joe D's 56- game hitting streak that was numero uno. Ah, but I remember: I won't forget. Ripken's achievement must not be slighted-everyone said it was impossible.

And now Tiger: The non-golfer will simply have to trust me that no one was supposed to be able to do what Tiger has, in fact, done. His achievements are-or were-unimaginable. The question arises, Has Woods won the Grand Slam? I, for one, don't care: He has won something like it-four consecutive majors-and no one else has (forgetting Bobby Jones, in the "premodern" Slam). I vow not to forget-no matter how fuzzy the past becomes-that Woods has accomplished what was proclaimed by one and all unaccomplishable.

How to talk about Tiger Woods? I don't know. Start with this (a cliche, but a useful cliche): When Nicklaus first showed up at the Masters, Bob Jones said, "He plays a game with which I am not familiar." The same has to be said of Woods. Another friend of mine-a pro golfer and a genuine philosophe-made the following, arresting statement: "It's not just that Woods is the best ever to play the game; it is that he is the first ever to play it." Think about that for more than a second or two, and you grow dizzy. What does it mean? It means, I think, that Tiger is the first truly to exploit the possibilities of the game. That he is the first to swing the club as it ought to be swung. That he-this gets a bit mystical-sees a game that others have been blind to, or have caught only glimpses of.

In the last years of his life, I had lessons-and many long conversations-with Bill Strausbaugh Jr., the most decorated teacher in the history of the PGA. "Coach" was one of the wisest men I ever hope to meet in golf, or to meet, period. Speaking of Tiger-this was in 1998, I believe-he said, "That young man has the best golf motion ever." (Coach disdained the word "swing"-he thought it gave his students the wrong idea.) I replied, condescendingly, like an idiot, "Oh, Coach, you must mean that he has one of the best ever. You've seen Hogan, Snead-all of them." He fixed me with a look and said, "No, Jay, I meant what I said: Tiger has the best golf motion ever." I was tremendously impressed by this, because the old are usually afflicted with the vice of nostalgia: No one is ever as good now as then. Thus, in baseball, for example, you hear, "Yeah, Roger Clemens is okay, but Grover Alexander! There was a pitcher!" Right.

Bill Strausbaugh also said, "Tiger has three things: a great golf motion, a great golf mind, and a great golf body. [This last, Coach maintained, is grossly underrated.] He is ideal-I never thought I would see it."

Tiger Woods was a legend before he ever turned pro. He had, I would argue, the greatest amateur career ever. (Bobby Jones idolaters-of whom I am one, from the crib-should just sit still. There is an argument here. And Jones wasn't an "amateur" in our present sense.) In fact, it's unfortunate about Tiger's dazzling pro career that it has been allowed to overshadow, inevitably, his amateur career. Tiger Woods, starting when he was 15 years old, won three straight U.S. Junior Championships and three straight U.S. Amateur Championships. This achievement is positively stupefying. I could try to explain, but, again, I say: Trust me.

Tiger was the youngest ever to win the Junior-he was 15. No one had ever won twice, and he would win three times. He was the youngest ever to win the U.S. Amateur-he was 18. He would be the only player ever to win the Am three years in a row. This takes a discipline, a kind of genius, that is hard to fathom. I argued, quite seriously, that if, God forbid, Tiger died before he ever had a chance to tee it up as a pro, he would die as one of the finest players in history. And he would have.

(I should interject here that Tiger-it is almost an afterthought-won the NCAA championship. He attended college-Stanford-for two years. Condoleezza Rice once told me-she had been provost of Stanford-that it was a shame that Tiger left school, understandable as it was, because he "really enjoyed it.")

Then there is Tiger the pro. Once more, how to convey the uniqueness- the impossibility-of it all? Tiger is only 25-and he has won 27 tournaments, including six majors (nine, if you count the way we do for Nicklaus). To provide a little comparison, Curtis Strange, who was the best player in the world for several years, won 17 tournaments, and two majors. At one stage, Woods won six PGA events in a row: Farewell, parity. Indeed, before Woods, it was absurd to say, "I think so-and-so will win this golf tournament," or even, "So-and-so is the favorite." Golf is not a football game, in which one team or the other must win. Tiger has introduced a strange element: predictability.

Let's grapple with some victory margins: In 1997 (at age 21, but that's a different matter), Tiger won the Masters by twelve shots. I once heard the TV commentator Ken Venturi, in the pre-Tiger era, say of a guy who was leading some tournament by three shots-three shots-"He's lapping the field." And he was. When you win the Masters, you win it by one shot, two shots-three shots, maybe. Often, you're forced to win it in a sudden-death playoff. Tiger won the 1997 Masters by twelve shots: He could have made a 15 at the final par 4 and still won-could have made 16 to play off.

In 2000, he won the U.S. Open, at Pebble Beach, by fifteen shots. He won the British Open, at St. Andrews, by eight shots. (These are all records, but we can't possibly begin to go into the record book.) I argued-only half-jokingly, or a third jokingly-that Tiger should retire then and there, rather as Bobby Jones did, at age 28. What did he have left to prove? Sure, he had dreamed all his life of breaking Nicklaus's lifetime records, but that was just a matter of longevity, of hanging around, of staying uninjured, of keeping oneself interested. What is there left to do after winning the U.S. Open at Pebble (by fifteen) and the British at St. Andrews (by eight), and in the millennial year of 2000?

Well, you can go on to win a type of Slam, I guess. And Woods is still charging.

Of course, he is more than a golfer: He is an important American, not least because of the racial or ethnic question. There is probably no one in the country more refreshing, more resolute about race than Tiger Woods. He is a one-man army against cant and stupidity. One of the most thrilling television moments I have ever seen occurred at the Masters, when Tiger was playing as an amateur. Jim Nantz of CBS asked him one of those softball, standard, perfunctory questions: "Do you think you have an obligation to be a role model for minority kids?" Tiger answered, quick as a flash, "No." I almost fell out of my chair. He continued, "I have an obligation to be a role model for all kids."

After Tiger won the Masters in '97, President Clinton asked him, the morning after, to join him the following day, to participate in a Jackie Robinson ceremony at Shea Stadium. Tiger said . . . no, to the President of the United States. The invitation was last-minute, and Tiger was suspicious of its motives. He had long planned a vacation in Mexico with friends, and he wouldn't scrap or alter it. Many people criticized Tiger for this decision; but he told them, essentially, to get lost. Here was a firm, self-confident democratic citizen, not a serf, complying with the ruler's summons. The same mettle Woods shows on the golf course, he shows off it.

A good number of people don't like Tiger's attitude-don't like it at all. Larry King asked him, in 1998, "Do you feel that you're an influence on young blacks?" Tiger answered, calmly, unmovably, "Young children." An annoyed King shot back, "Just 'young children'? Don't you think you've attracted a lot more blacks to the game?" Replied Woods, "Yeah, I think I've attracted minorities to the game, but you know what? Why limit it to just that? I think you should be able to influence people in general, not just one race or social-economic background. Everybody should be in the fold." Again, I almost fell out of my chair. Tiger may be the most pointed universalist in public life.

Even Colin Powell, the current secretary of state, has gotten snippy with Tiger, or about him. Woods coined a word to describe his racial makeup: "Cablinasian." This is meant to stand for a mixture of Caucasian, black, Indian (American Indian), and Asian. Tiger's dad, a tough, no-nonsense career military man, is (to be disgustingly racial, but this is to make a point) half black, a quarter Chinese, and a quarter Indian; Tiger's mom is half Thai, a quarter Chinese, and a quarter white. Tiger is, in other words, 100 percent, pure American. Back to General Powell. On Meet the Press one Sunday in 1997, Tim Russert asked him (rather in the manner of Orval Faubus, actually), "If you have an ounce of black blood, aren't you black?" Powell responded that, like Tiger, he was of varied background, but "in order to not come up with a very strange word such as Tiger did, I consider myself black American. I'm very proud of it."

Well, despite his distaste for racial baloney, so is Woods: He is neither unaware nor unappreciative of the struggles of black people in this country. After winning the Masters that first time, he paid due homage to black players before him, including Charlie Sifford and Lee Elder (the first black to be allowed to play in the Masters, in 1975).

Yet Woods refuses to spend his life in obeisance to the race gods. At one point, he felt obliged to put out a "Media Statement," the purpose of which was "to explain my heritage." It would be-this is typical Tiger-"the final and only comment I will make regarding the issue":

My parents have taught me to always be proud of my ethnic background. Please rest assured that is, and always will be, the case . . . On my father's side, I am African-American. On my mother's side, I am Thai. Truthfully, I feel very fortunate, and EQUALLY PROUD, to be both African-American and Asian!

The critical and fundamental point is that ethnic background and/or composition should NOT make a difference. It does NOT make a difference to me. The bottom line is that I am an American . . . and proud of it! That is who I am and what I am. Now, with your cooperation, I hope I can just be a golfer and a human being.

We're told that we shouldn't need heroes. Well, too bad: We got one.

Not every touring pro has been gracious about Tiger and what he means; envy and resentment run deep. But the Scottish champion Colin Montgomerie said a lot when he commented recently, "We never thought this would happen [Tiger's explosion] or that there was even a chance it would happen. We're fortunate to have the world's best athlete playing our game. We're all not bad. He's just better. He is magnificent in every department."

Yes, in every department. A rare spirit shoots through Tiger. Consider a few, disparate things. Every year at Augusta, the Champions Dinner is held, for which the previous year's winner selects the menu. In 1998, Tiger-age 22-chose hamburgers and milkshakes: the all-American meal. After he won the '97 Masters (remember, by a historic twelve shots), he took a look at the film and announced, "My swing stinks" (he didn't say "stinks," but I've cleaned it up a little). So he worked to make it even better-and it may become better yet. Woods is a perfect combination of the cool, self-contained golfer, a la Ben Hogan (or Nicklaus, for that matter), and the hot, impassioned golfer, a la Arnold Palmer, or Seve Ballesteros. And, finally, there is no better interview in sports: He handles himself superbly, and is not above displaying a contempt (usually sly) for dumb questions.

My golf friends and I have made our peace with Tiger, to say the least. Initially, I think we all had a fear of his displacing Nicklaus, which seemed . . . sacrilegious. It helped, however, that Woods is the biggest Nicklaus worshiper of all: He venerates him as Nicklaus venerated Jones, and as Nicklaus pledged to follow in Jones's footsteps, Tiger has pledged to follow in Nicklaus's. Said Nicklaus five years ago, "There isn't a flaw in [Tiger's] golf or in his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me [Arnie was standing next to him] combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger, because he's such a great kid."

Oh, it's a thrill to be alive in the Time of Tiger. Whether you give a hoot about golf or not, I ask you-a final time-to trust me: Rejoice.