By John Feinstein
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, April 14, 2008 5:39 PM

It is almost tempting to joke today about the fact that Tiger Woods got to within four victories of winning the 2008 Grand Slam. Or, to put it another way, Trevor Immelman is one win closer to a sweep of the major championships than Woods.

That, however, entirely misses several points. The first being what took place this past weekend at Augusta National Golf Club; the second being the remarkable death-grip Woods holds on his sport -- even in defeat.

Woods is so good so often that it is easy to forget that he is (occasionally) fallible, that there will be weeks when he can't put the ball in the fairway consistently and his putting will be merely good as opposed to spectacular.

The sad thing about that is there is a tendency not to credit those who beat him (it hasn't been a long list lately), but rather to talk about what Woods didn't do well. Immelman is an extremely worthy champion, a rising young player with a superb golf swing who fought off the nerves anyone is going to have trying to win his first major, while being chased by Woods, to make several clutch putts on the back nine -- most notably the 20-footer from off the green at the 11th that allowed him to have enough cushion to handle a splash-down double bogey at the 16th.

Immelman is 28, which means he's the only player in the world under 30 currently holding a major title. He's the first South African to win the Masters since Gary Player won his third in 1978. There's a sweet symmetry to his relationship with Player, not only because Player has been a mentor to him but because Player set the all-time record by teeing it up in his 51st Masters while Immelman was winning his first. Add in Immelman coming back four months after surgery to remove a tumor from his diaphragm and you have a wonderful story.

Except (and this really isn't anyone's fault) all the questions aren't about Immelman leading from wire-to-wire but about Woods not winning. That's just the way it is in golf these days. Years ago, when Arnold Palmer was trying to win one last time near the end of his career, he was caught from behind at the Hawaiian Open by a pro named Gary Groh. The lead on the wire story that day was, "Arnie lost again." Groh was mentioned somewhere in the third paragraph.

Groh, a genuinely nice man, laughed when he was asked about Palmer's loss being the story rather than his victory. "I'd have written it the same way," he said. "The check I got for winning was probably double what it would have been if not for Arnold Palmer."

Today's players know the same is true of Woods. Immelman's check for $1.35 million -- not to mention how much the win will be worth to him away from the golf course -- is markedly higher because of the visibility Woods has brought to the game. Immelman gushed about Woods, justifiably proud of himself for hanging on to beat him.

Of course Woods, and others, won't see it quite that way. They will accurately point out that Woods drove the ball all over the lot for most of the week and missed several key putts, especially on Sunday. They will conveniently forget that he is the greatest scrambler in the history of golf and keeps himself in tournaments when he doesn't bring his "A" game to the tee by making pars no one on earth would even think about trying to make. And, while Woods will wave his hand in disgust when a 20-footer goes in for birdie at the 18th on Sunday as if he has never made a putt in his life, they will forget the 50-footer he made at the 11th for birdie and the up-and-downs he converted all week. Sure, he missed a five-footer for birdie at the 13th but how did he get to that five-footer? Drive in the trees, punch out, gorgeous wedge to five feet. Ho-hum. Other guys would have had a five-footer for six; his was for four.

What makes it so difficult to put the wooden stake through Woods's heart, even in weeks when his game isn't all there, is that he's so competitive -- he can will himself to stay in contention with extraordinary recovery shots and the occasional ho-hum 50-footer. That, and the fact that anytime he's trailing on the leader board everyone ahead of him develops a crick in their neck looking back to see where he is. Call it a Tiger tick. They've all got it.

Immelman played the "don't look at the scoreboard," game on Sunday and, since he won, there's no arguing with it. Generally speaking though it is absolutely stupid to not know what's going on around you on Sunday. Not looking didn't seem to calm him very much and what if his lead had been one or he'd been tied playing 18? Don't you need to know that? Imagine playing any other sport without knowing the score. The two greatest players in the history of the game, Woods and Nicklaus, never once walked by a scoreboard without checking it.

Woods began the year by saying on his web site that he thought a calendar Grand Slam was "easily attainable," this year. He did that, no doubt, to try to reach a mindset where he believed it could happen and would happen.

As great as Woods is, the odds against such a feat are daunting. The fact that he won four majors in a row back in 2000-01 is an amazing feat and is proof that he is capable of winning four straight.

But so much has to go right for such a thing to happen. You can't have one truly bad round like the 81 Woods shot in a hurricane at the 2002 British Open when he had already won the Masters and U.S. Open that year and was a couple of shots back after two rounds at Muirfield.

You can't have another great player like Lee Trevino have a near-perfect week the way Jack Nicklaus did in 1972 after he had won the first two majors of that year.

And you can't have a wayward driver and a less-than-perfect putter, even if you do enough other things well enough to finish second to a good young player having the week of his life.

One can only hope that Woods was joking when he said after his loss, "I learned my lesson with you guys," when discussing the comment he had made, unsolicited, on his own web site. Woods is so careful about everything he says in public that it would be a shame if one slightly wayward prediction (he didn't say he would win the Slam just that he could) caused him to retreat back into some kind of shell.

There are some, many in fact, in the media who think that a major isn't really a major when the winner is Immelman or Zach Johnson or Angel Cabrera. If Woods can't win for some reason, then Phil Mickelson should win, or Ernie Els, or Vijay Singh, or maybe one of the young guns like Adam Scott, or a bomber like Bubba Watson. One national radio talk show host was heard on this morning saying, "Enough with Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman we need a real Masters winner next year."

Which misses the point entirely. Immelman is a more-than-worthy winner and a terrific story too. He's good enough to contend in majors down the road. A victory like his should be both appreciated and enjoyed.

There will be plenty more majors where Woods ends up with the trophy or the green jacket. He will blow away fields again -- quite possibly in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in June -- on plenty of occasions, leaving us all gasping at his talent. That's almost the norm in golf these days: Tiger laps field; sun rises in east.

That's why a Sunday like the one just past should be savored because it isn't the norm. The unexpected is what makes sports worth our time. Trevor Immelman was an unexpected winner.

And a worthy one at that. Woods will survive a few missed putts and another year without a jacket to add to his collection.

So will golf, believe it or not.