Rich Hofmann: Interacting with Tiger Woods inside the ropes

THE FIRST TIME Tiger Woods was called "the chosen one" in a newspaper was when he was a 16-year-old high school sophomore. It was in a story in the Orange County Register on the eve of his receiving a sponsor's exemption to play in a PGA Tour event in Los Angeles. The year was 1992.

Why look it up? It was because of something that Spencer Walker, a petty officer second class with the United States Coast Guard, said yesterday. He was one of the enlisted men stationed in this area given the opportunity to caddie for a hole with a player during the pro-am at the AT & T National at Aronimink. By happenstance, Walker got Tiger.

"It was the luck of the draw," he said. "One of the other people didn't show up and it just fell that way. I got to be the chosen one."

The chosen one.

It is still true for Woods, even after everything.

There is little need to point out the obvious. Woods plays golf and has earnings in the billions. Walker has worked on narcotics raids and on intercepting illegal aliens at sea. Woods is self-employed, self-motivated; key word: self. Walker works, really, for all of us, for everyone but himself.

Woods is showered with fame and drowning in infamy. Walker is a man in uniformed service - doing work that is not famous, just dangerous. But they were together there on the 17th hole of the pro-am - talking and laughing and then enjoying a few minutes of gracious fun when Woods handed Walker the putter and allowed him to go about the business of finishing up the hole. Four putts later, he did.

"It's something I'll never forget," Walker said, and you knew he meant it.

The Tiger dichotomy was a phenomenon in full yesterday. Hundreds of people followed Woods' group in the pro-am while the rest of the players were pretty much followed only by shadows. His personal behavior turned him into an international punch line just a few months ago yet the line to see him hit punch shots remains unbroken.

All of which says something about the cult of celebrity in our culture, and something about us as consumers of that culture. Even more, though, it says something about golf people, about their respect for the game above all else and their appreciation for Woods' accomplishments inside the ropes.

Talking to Walker, wearing a camouflage caddie's bib, it very obviously never crossed his mind to be anything other than thrilled by the experience.

Woods gave him his glove and the ball, which Walker said he will put on a mantle somewhere. He said it is something he will remember "for my entire life. When you get to partake in something like this, with real high-profile people, it's just a pleasure. A pleasure."

Walking up the fairway, Woods asked Walker about his handicap. Walker said, "You don't want to know." As they approached the ball on the green, they talked about the line the putt might travel.

"We looked at it the first time and saw that it was a little left to right," Walker said. "He was getting ready to putt and then he said, 'Let's take another look.' I took another look, and he just dropped that putter right down there [to me]. I was like, 'Oh, man.' "

The man who confronts potentially armed and dangerous drug smugglers on the open seas said, "I've never shaken so much in my entire life" as he stood over the putt. "I don't know how the pros do it with everybody just watching."

Walker spoke entirely without irony. Woods was on to the next hole by then, he and the following thousands. We have never seen anything like it - sporting hero, tabloid bum, the lines between the two never seeming to intersect.

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