Peter Williams: Obsessive drive to improve fires up the Tiger

Tiger Woods provided an insight into why he's as good as he is after his history-making win in the Open championship at St Andrews.

With the interview room crowded to overflowing, the best golfer of his generation told us he wanted to get better.

I must confess to a double take. Because I wanted to enjoy the scene around the 18th green and the famous R&A clubhouse for as long as possible after the finish of the tournament, I was a bit late to the champion's press conference. That meant I was one of countless reporters crammed in the doorway of the interview room.

Having watched countless interviews with him over the years and indeed having had a couple of post-round discussions with him at Paraparaumu in 2002, I didn't expect his frank and direct answers. There were some beauties. One reporter, perhaps representing a hopeful charity, asked what he'd do with the 720,000 prize-money.

"I'll put it in the bank" said Tiger "and keep it for a rainy day."

The guy who makes around a million a week aroused a few sniggers of ironical laughter with that one. But then came the cruncher. The golfer who has won 10 major championships and two career grand slams before his 30th birthday, wants to get better.

"The drive is to get better. You can always get better. No matter how well you play, you can always get better," he said.

With those words he confirmed what most of us have been thinking for some years, even when he wasn't winning major championships - Woods will become the most prolific winner of majors that golf has known and he'll pass Jack Nicklaus' record number of 18 well before he reaches the age of 46.

I had the privilege of walking the final nine holes of Tiger's second Open championship with him. All down that final stretch there were calls of encouragement from fans. Not once did he acknowledge such a call. After he holed out each time there was a tip of the cap or a wave, but it wasn't until he approached the 17th green, with a five-shot lead, that he took off his cap and let the gallery into his world.

Because until then, he was as self-centred and self-focused an individual as I've seen in sport.

Even his relationship with caddy Steve Williams appeared barely verbal.

Only from 100m out on the 17th, and then all the way up the 18th, did he let his armour melt away. It is no doubt a state of mind, almost a trance, that he educates himself into finding every time he starts a competitive round of golf.

He reminds me of Sir Richard Hadlee at his peak. Hadlee was never afraid to say that he used statistics and records as motivations to take more wickets and score more runs.

Woods is like that. Last Sunday he talked about moving past halfway in pursuit of Nicklaus' total, then about equalling Bobby Jones' record of 13 amateur and professional major championships.

Records matter to Tiger Woods and he wants to set new ones. That's why he's driven to be a better golfer. The really good Tiger Woods years are still to come.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY