The most indelible Tiger Woods moment of 2008 wasn’t the slippery 12-footer he drained on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open to force a Monday playoff with Rocco Mediate. It was the celebration that ensued. When the putt dropped, Woods arched his back as if preparing to limbo, clenched his fists and thrust his arms. “Expect anything different?” Dan Hicks said on NBC.

Hicks was talking about the putt. But he could have been referencing Woods’ fist pumping, which has become as much a Tiger trademark as his towering drives and clutch putts. For good reason, it turns out.

"I asked him a question recently about the whole fist-pumping thing," Stuart Appleby said this week. "I said to him: 'How do you do that? If I did that, the adrenaline would be coursing through my veins, I'd be so jacked up it wouldn't help my game.' He said: 'It makes me more focused. It makes me concentrate more.' I'm thinking: 'That's the opposite to me.' Most people would be that way. That's the way he operates. He does so many things differently to everyone else."

The legend grows…

(Photo: Al Tielemans/SI)