A Fitting Champion For Woods's Event

Even Tiger Woods sometimes has no idea of the seeds he sows.

Only one outcome could have made Sunday at the AT&T National at Congressional Country Club a full-blown success, as well as a major memory for 29,867 golf fans, instead of a lame consolation prize for the absence of Woods, the injured host.

That perfect ending arrived as Anthony Kim, the cocky 23-year-old with a Los Angeles street edge, won this event with the booming strength and oblivious self-confidence that has the whole sport wondering if he'll be the world's next great player.

And who is responsible for Kim's emergence this season with two victories on the PGA Tour in the past two months and a No. 5 spot on the money list? You guessed it: Tiger.

Last September, Kim showed up at Cog Hill fashionably late, because that's the way he rolled. See the course before you play it? Why bother? Hit practice balls? Who needs it? Drop down three balls, putt 'em once, tee it up and think you'll beat the world. And if you're still resurfacing from the night before, why be young if you can't act like it?

"I just grabbed a breakfast burrito," Kim said. "I still hadn't even seen my locker or changed my shoes." At that moment, Kim looked up and saw Woods. "He was playing 15 minutes in front of me, but he had already finished practicing."

Tiger was calm, cool, prepared, imperial and adult. Kim felt like a kid, a fake, deserving to lose.

"I got drummed," said Kim, who finished 52nd, 22 shots behind the winner, Woods.

That was the day Kim swore he would change. After all, Woods had been his idol since childhood. "AK" wore out that video of Tiger's six U.S. Junior and U.S. Amateur titles. Many in golf told Kim, until he was sick of hearing it, that if he didn't throw away his talent, he was one of the handful of players on earth who might someday actually challenge Woods -- if he did everything right, if he didn't try to beat Tiger on a stomach full of late-night martinis and a burrito for breakfast.

Roughly as long as Tiger? Check. As good a swing at a comparable age? Check. Lots of swagger from an edgy youth in L.A. when, until he was in high school, he still told his parents he planned to play in the NBA and NFL and on the PGA Tour -- in the same year? Check to that, twice. And some rebelliousness against a demanding father? Check that, too.

Last year, "my preparation and work ethic couldn't have gotten any worse. I wasn't doing myself justice to act that way," Kim said. "I just took a step back and said, 'If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it the right way.' And I've been doing it ever since."

For certain, Kim has picked exactly the right time to do it: the moment when Woods, for the first time in his life, sounds like he understands that he's mortal.