They're On A Collision Course

Everything that happened at last year's AT&T National now, suddenly, seems like a preamble for this year's event. Will last year's champion, swaggering young Anthony Kim, 24, bristling with talent and ranked 15th in the world, pick this moment to mount his first head-to-head challenge to his boyhood hero, this week's host, Tiger Woods?

Sure seems like it. We can only hope. In yesterday morning's opening round, Kim broke the Congressional Country Club Blue Course scoring record with an 8-under-par 62 that could have been a downright silly 61 if he had made an eight-foot birdie putt on his last hole. This is Congressional, where they'll play the U.S. Open in 2011, not East Potomac Park. Sure, the course is set up for a normal PGA Tour event, not a national championship. And rain has left the track soft and as easy as it will ever play. But 8-under 62?!

Was this Kim's first salvo in the career-long showdown with Woods, that in a respectful but firm way Kim insists he craves? Anthony, you threw down the gauntlet before Tiger got out there, didn't you, shooting the course record? "I did play very well, but that man can go out there and shoot 60," Kim said. "So I'm not really worried about what he's doing. All I can do is focus on myself."

Sure. And Tiger didn't notice, either. He just went out and shot 64 in the afternoon to stand in a three-way tie for second place. Every time Woods talks about the potentially great young players of the near future, he mentions Kim first, viewing him as someone who may win a fistful of majors, not just a couple. Every time Kim talks about Woods, he talks about learning the game by constantly watching a Woods video, just as Woods studied Jack Nicklaus.

Last year here, Kim said: "People are looking and hoping to find the guy that's going to challenge Tiger. It's time for the young guys to step up and make a statement. I've got to win about 13 more majors to worry [Tiger]. . . . I'm sure he wants to have people step up and see what he's made of."

So, Kim, who wore a bejeweled "A.K." belt buckle as big as a bucket of range balls in the final round on Sunday last year, always treads on the very edge of Woods's robe, never presuming too much. But unlike so many others in the last dozen seasons, Kim never steps back from the idea that he is the player who will someday invade Tiger's nightmares.

Perhaps Woods has a chance to land the first preemptive psychological blow here in what will almost certainly become a rivalry at some point in the next few seasons (or months). This year, Kim has battled a thumb injury, ignoring doctors' advice to take four to six weeks off. Instead, he insists: "When I signed with Nike, they said they want athletes. Athletes and pros play with pain and play through injuries."

Now, the thumb no longer needs to be taped "as tight as possible" just to play. It no longer even hurts. But the strength in the crucial (golf) joint isn't back. So, much as Washington wishes this could be the week that golf gets the first Woods-Kim final pairing on Sunday, Kim's game may not quite be back. Well, except for that 29 he shot on his back nine to break the course record. So, how bad can it be?

Woods is actually a bit protective of Kim. "Hopefully, we can both get into that situation. Today we both played well, but still, we have a long way to go before we can put ourselves in a position where we do have a head-to-head battle. It is what it is. But we have a long way to go before it happens."

Or, maybe, just 72 hours. Tiger seldom backs off once he gets close to the lead in any event, much less his own. And a 62, on a course that figures to get harder if there is no more rain this week, is an awfully good way to set up a spot in the last group on Sunday.

But, in the long view, do you look forward to the day when there is a challenge by Kim? So far, in 13-plus seasons on tour, no one younger than Woods has ever used his methods, studied his approach, used him as their career-long measuring stick and mounted a challenge. The first time I saw Kim's coiled-spring, perfectly balanced, under-control-but-utterly-ferocious explosion of a swing last year, I thought, "The first post-Tiger swing." Before Woods, nobody imagines this is possible. After him, nothing less is good enough.

"Well, yeah, he has the talent to do it," Woods said of a Kim challenge. "It's just a matter of him working hard and getting experience and getting up there in position a lot of times and beginning to understand how to do it.