Tiger Woods Gets A Sour Dose of Graeme McDowell

Graeme McDowell, with that Irish sense of humor, wandered up to tournament director Greg McLaughlin Saturday night at the Sherwood Country Club as asked if it would be okay if he at least TRIED to beat Tiger Woods in the final round of the Chevron World Challenge.

After all, Tiger WAS going to win this one, wasn't he?

Tiger Woods WAS going to cruise with that four-shot lead he built for three days, wasn't he?

Surely, even this revamped, work-in-progress version of Tiger Woods could hold on to a four-shot lead, couldn't he?

A strange thing happened on the way to the re-anointing of the former world's No. 1 player on that dramatic Sunday at Sherwood.

Tiger Woods got Graeme McDowelled.

How dare that plucky little lad from Northern Ireland?

The nerve of him.

No way Tiger Woods could blow a four-shot lead on a golf course that is made for him to feast on with those five par-five holes. No way Tiger could lose with adoring caddy Steve Williams publicly declaring that "The tide has turned" for his employer.

Someone forgot to tell that bold little party crasher, McDowell, that this is Tiger's shindig. It's his stomping ground, the course where he's won this little 18-man invite four times and seemingly finished second whenever he doesn't win.

Unfortunately for Woods, when you look up "ultimate grinder" in the golf dictionary, his name has been replaced by McDowell's, who showed that at the U.S. Open.

It's been a dream season for McDowell and it was a surreal finish on Sunday that ripped the fancy Tiger Trophy from Woods' grasp.

After all, McDowell was folding, wasn't he? He had run Woods down, thanks in part to some of those gaffes that have annoyed Woods this season. But there was McDowell hitting his tee shot at the par three 17th into grass so high that one might lose a small child in it.

The laughing lad from Ireland made one heck of a bogey and surely that might doom him and surely Woods would fittingly get that elusive win on this last day of his golf season, 2010 version.

Surely, Woods would win when he hit that vintage Woods eight-iron within three feet at the 72nd hole.

No way McDowell would be brash enough to hole that 25-foot birdie putt and force Woods to bear the agony of a playoff.

Way.

The nerve of him.

To make matters worse, he'd do it again on the first playoff hole. Drained another 20-footer for birdie, he did.

The scheduled Woods march to victory had become just another head-scratching moment for the world's No. 2, who must now ponder what lies ahead.

Will some other cocky European pick his pocket when victory looks so certain next year?

Oh perhaps it was the setting, the Sherwood property where the vintage "Robin Hood" movie with Errol Flynn in the lead role as legendary outlaw who robbed from the rich.

Because on that dramatic afternoon that wrote the latest chapter in the continuing Woods saga, McDowell, the Irish Robin Hood, simply robbed from the rich.