Bettis a guest at Tiger's tee party
DETROIT — There they were: the local hero and the worldwide star, the Super Bowl victor and the British Open champ, two athletes whose nicknames are better-known than their given first names.
Eldrick (Tiger) Woods and Jerome (the Bus) Bettis played together in the Buick Open pro-am on Wednesday morning, and they were the pair everybody wanted to follow.
They made a strange pairing, Tiger and the Bus. The golfer is the muscular, defined athlete. The football player looks like a bowler — which he is, now that he has retired from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
"It was great to get a round in and joke it up a little with him," said Bettis, who had never met Woods before.
As a general rule, pro-ams are not memorable. The pros don't care about their score. The amateurs just don't want to kill anybody.
But there was a moment, as they walked from the 12th green to the 13th tee, that summed up what it's like to watch Tiger Woods. The walkway is at least 20 paces long and maybe 10 feet wide, and it was lined with fans.
Bettis went first. A bunch of people asked for his autograph, including a group of kids — Mr. Bettis, Mr. Bettis, Mr. Bettis — to Bettis' right. The Bus went left, signed a few autographs, cut to the right, signed for the kids, then walked to the tee.
Then came Tiger. He gave the first autograph-seeker a polite but firm, "Not until I'm done, guys, thanks," and went on his way. And here is the amazing thing: For the next 20 steps, nobody asked for his autograph. One "no" was enough for the crowd.
Bettis, who attended Detroit Mackenzie High, signed autographs all day. (He even signed somebody's inhaler, the first time he has ever done that.) Tiger? He signs scorecards.
"You gotta understand," Bettis said, "when I'm playing football, I'm not signing autographs. This is a job for him. He has to pay attention and be acutely aware of everything that's going on."
True. But as Tiger waited to tee off on No. 15, Vijay Singh—maybe the least-popular star on the PGA Tour—signed autographs on the adjacent sixth hole. The difference is that most fans view Singh as an excellent golfer who is fortunate because fans pay to watch him; they view Tiger as transcendent and think they are lucky to be in his presence.
This is Tiger's first tournament since his emotional win at the British Open. He said he has not watched the replay of that win or its immediate aftermath, when he burst into tears while thinking about his father, Earl, who died May 3.
The Bus said he would love to play with Tiger again. Bettis said they had a "friendly wager" for Wednesday's round, and let's hope it was indeed friendly—Tiger, well on his way to becoming a billionaire, has the wallet and game to clean out Bettis if he chooses.
Bettis, a member at the Detroit Golf Club (he played a tune-up round there Tuesday), has the kind of game that looks great if you don't watch too closely. He hits mammoth drives. He has a nice touch around the greens. He just doesn't play consistently enough to shoot a low score. When he was asked what his handicap is, Bettis said, "My knee, my back... "
Then he said, "I'm about an 18."
And he said, "We did a little trash-talking."
Tiger got the last word during his interview session, which began with Bettis asking a few questions.
Bettis: "How did your playing partner, some big guy, overweight guy, Jerome Bettis... how did he play today?"
Tiger cracked a half-smile, said nothing, and the room cracked up.
