Sky Sports.com - Masters 2008

Immelman: Invisible?

Trevor Immelman could be forgiven for thinking he is the Invisible Man this week deep in the Georgia countryside. Having donned the famous green jacket at the end of four days of golfing combat at Augusta last year, he probably feels he deserves just a little recognition.

But, sadly, there is none to spare for the self-effacing South African - and defending Masters champion - when it comes to the great and all-encompassing media blanket of preview material being thrown over the famous Augusta National Golf Club.

In fact, you may struggle to find much mention of the 29-year-old from Cape Town in the vast welter of newspaper, TV and radio outpourings that have been devoted to the tradition-fest that is the 73rd outing of "The Tournament", as it is often referred to over here.

That is because young Trevor is officially an inhabitant of Tiger World, the mystical realm of golfing legend and hyperbole that is once again the constant companion of a certain Eldrick 'Tiger' Woods, a region of the sporting cosmos that brooks no interruption from mere mortal entities in its rush to deify the peerless world No 1.

To be fair, it isn't really just Tiger who has taken over the spotlight and ensured there is no room left in it for the mere defending champion. Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Geoff Ogilvy, Rory McIlroy and even the rare sighting of a Great White Shark have all given the media PLENTY to write about in the days leading up to the big tee-off on Thursday.

Even the big 'Final farewell' stories of Gary Player and Fuzzy Zoeller have commanded more column inches than Immelman's chances of repeating as champ come Sunday night.

But such is the all-powerful trajectory of the great shooting star that is Woods, the merest cough or hiccup from his direction is enough to have all the cameras, reporters and microphones pointing unhesitatingly in his direction once more.

Tiger World is a very real and intense dominion; it doesn't demand the limelight and the almost awed, breathless air that accompanies it, but it does engender the stuff of legend on such a regular basis that it is hard to quibble.

And it remains a phenomenon that can go from 0 to Lightspeed in the merest blink of an eye. Less than a month ago, I was reporting that there was a curious absence of Tiger focus before the WGC-CA Championship in Doral - his second tournament back from the Great Knee Rebuilding of '08.

But it took only one more event for Woods to show he remains the very epi-centre of the golfing universe, a typically sensational finish to the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, with Tiger sinking the kind of nerveless 16-footer that we just expect to see from his putter.

NBC TV reported their highest ratings since the genuine epic that was last June's US Open. "The natural order of the universe has been restored," insisted another correspondent.

And, with no further ado, Tiger World was back holding full sway over a nation that has been less than impressed with the start of the baseball season to date (they got snowed off in Chicago, for example, and also postponed in Boston) and distinctly underwhelmed by the college basketball final on Monday, which saw North Carolina steamroll a hapless Michigan State team, leading to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the corner of Michigan which I currently inhabit.

(Actually, the basketball had all the potential to become THE sporting story of the month over here, seeing as it was held in Detroit, in front of record crowds, all urging MSU to offer them some hope from the current economic doom and gloom which blights these parts. Sadly, after a classic semi-final victory, the Spartans completely ran out of steam against the Tar Heels*)

OK, said some cynics, Tiger winning in Bay Hill was the equivalent of Geoff Boycott scoring another hundred in his back garden off his mum's bowling; in simple parlance, a gimme. Bay Hill is barely a good 3-iron away from where Woods actually lives, so he knows the course probably as well as he knows any in America. He wins there about as often as Basil Brush appears in panto (which is to say, pretty often).

But they completely missed the point. A Woods win is always a thing of beauty and a force to be reckoned with. On the eve of a Major championship, it is like ignoring the build-up of storm clouds and expecting a sunny day on the morrow. Oh, and it also came with the little matter of a record 5-stroke comeback on the final round - the kind of thing which seems par for the course with all things Tigerian, but which actually makes the serious pundits sit up ramrod straight to take notice.

Hence this week's catchphrase has become the near mantra of "if Tiger wins the Grand Slam this year, he will equal Jack Nicklaus for the most Major wins of all time."

IF Tiger wins the Grand Slam? IF he achieves something which only one golfer has ever managed in the great and storied annals of golf? IF he somehow battles through four Major events and equals the 1930 feat of Bobby Jones? IF he racks up 18 Major titles at the age of 33 to equal something that took Nicklaus until he was 46 to achieve?

Yes, 'if.' That one small word has become virtually the equivalent of 'when' in the modern sportswriting vernacular; an expectation of achievement on the kind of scale which is actually almost impossible to comprehend.

No-one actually wins Grand Slams in this day and age. Even the Woods of non-bionic knee days didn't really come close to a calendar clean sweep, despite the 'Tiger Slam' of 2000/01. Yet the expectation is out there - the beginnings of a Slam are surely imminent.

That means, for all the fact the likes of Harrington, with his run of two successive Major wins, the in-form Ogilvy and Mickelson, and even a rejuvenated Greg Norman (more the Great White-Haired Shark these days) have all claimed justifiable prominence in the build-up this week, one man remains the media darling when it comes to golf's great events.

So, if anyone spots Trevor Immelman on TV at any stage this week, give him a wave, will you? He'll probably be feeling very lonely.

* When it comes to American sporting nicknames, the Tar Heels of North Carolina take some beating. Legend has it that, in the US Civil War, the troops from that state stuck to their posts "like they had tar on their heels." You see - you never know what you might learn reading this column!