Tiger Woods is just another pop icon, not a religious icon; he not "evil" and not "good," but maybe he has been resurrected.
PREFACE:
First off, I don’t love
Tiger Woods. I do admire his talent and skill at playing golf. At times I have
been in awe of his brilliance at playing this sport --- or “game” if you are still
in denial that golf is, in fact, a sport.
I was a small boy when I last idolized any sports hero. When the
Dodgers left Brooklyn, I was twelve, and ready to grow up.
I do think Woods is a genius of a sort. He is certainly one of
the two greatest professional golfers ever, and he probably ranks among the
most proficient athletes in any sport ever.
I don’t like that he accepts praise from Trump and that he, like
Michael Jordan, and unlike Ali, Curry, James, and other African Americans,
cares more about corporate image than protesting injustice. He limits his good
works to his foundation, a charity that, like so many others, exists as much to
provide a tax break and salve to his image and conscience as to do good works.
His serial infidelities during his marriage also reflect poorly
on his character, although I don’t put him among those men who have physically
abused women. I suspect that when his father died, the boy who had always been
a work-obsessed nerd now found himself an object of desire. Risky behavior is
nothing new for celebrities. Yet, none of that excuses his actions. While the
hallmark of his golf style was thoughtfulness, his private life was
thoughtlessly reckless, resulting in the destruction of his family and
clean-cut image.
So, I do not think he is a very “good” person. And I am not
surprised. I have found that there is a disparity between “goodness” and
“greatness” especially in geniuses. They are almost always too selfish to be
“good” to those around them. They often disappoint spouses, offspring, friends,
and colleagues, in favor of their own obsessive striving for their goals.
Einstein, as an example, was unfaithful to his loyal wife, denied her credit
for contributions to his work, abandoned her for another, and wasn’t very kind
to his children, one of whom had what we now call special needs, needs that Einstein
for the most part ignored.
It seems to me that for many of the uniquely gifted, other human
qualities have been neglected. It is so common in history, that it may be a
requirement.
LIFE IN A BUBBLE
Woods, like other elite athletes, lived his life in a bubble,
led to believe he could not be beaten.
Woods was a golfing prodigy from the age of 2 when he appeared
on TV with Bob Hope to show off his swing. In his teens he won the junior
amateur national title 3 years in a row. He then won the US Amateur title for
another 3 years, ending while he was at Stanford. Turning pro at 20, he
signed a multi-million dollar endorsement contract with Nike and made their
famous swoosh even more common than when it adorned Jordan’s basketball shoes.
Earl Woods, the father who had guided his growth, forecast that
his son would change the world, more important than Gandhi. To the media this sort of arrogant blasphemy
was seen as contrary to the supposed gentlemanly humility that the golf
community claimed.
Tiger was raised to have a degree of self-confidence that he need not hide.
When asked by reporters what his goal was for a coming tournament, Woods habitually
had a one-word answer, “Winning.” Like the
brash Ali, he usually did what he said he would.
Tiger was not unlike many elite athletes in that respect. They
are raised from early in life to believe in their mission and their special
gifts. Their faith is reinforced as they climb the ziggurat, defeating all their
peers. Those few who reach the top expect to win every time, expect to be
adored by others, and they are.
That is why his spectacular fall was so dramatic. The scandal,
the revelations of sordid affairs, the rehabs and phony admissions (the hackneyed “I take full responsibility”) that we always hear and snicker at, it all seemed
so familiar.
Although he returned to the golf tour and did win tournaments (3
in 2012, 5 in 2013, when voted Player of the Year for the 11th
time), and was sporadically competitive in Majors, he lost 6 years: 2010-2011 to
recover from the scandal; and then 2014-2017, with injuries.
Instead of images of Woods making majestic swings and fist
pumps, viewers watched him writhing in pain, trying to walk and even sit,
grimacing in agony as he withdrew from tournaments time after time, a man bowed and aging
pitifully.
When he was given honorary titles, named as assistant to Ryder Cup and President’s Cup
captains, he told the young players who expressed their admiration for the old
man that he doubted that he would ever play again. Tiger’s incredible playing
career was surely over.
The arc of his career was like that of Sandy Koufax, cut short
in his prime, while we were left with what might have been. Once, they all said
he would shatter Jack’s record, win 10 Masters, win 20 or more Majors. Now, he
would never play golf again, never win any tournament again, certainly never
win another Major, much less break “Jack’s Record.”
Then, incredibly, in April, 2019, Tiger Woods was in the final group on Sunday at Augusta National in the Masters.
SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2019
I went into Tiger mode all weekend, but especially Sunday. Ron
asked if I wanted to watch the finals with him. I said no. I couldn’t deal with
the distractions of Laura talking about Max or food and Ron’s asides about
Nicklaus and Palmer, while I wanted to focus on each and every shot and word
spoken and each sight.
So, the final round began at 6 am and I watched every second
until it ended around noon and then I watched the post game shows and then the
highlights and then the replay.
Sporting events provide the only real reality show. The outcome is not scripted, not edited, not
contrived, not predictable. There are favorites, underdogs, long shots, there
are surprises, disappointments; the range of emotions is broad and deep.
There is also the chance to see something you have never seen
before, something no one has ever seen before. And there is the chance to see
someone who does something that is hard to do and does it better than anyone
has done it.
As a child, I watched baseball games on TV, seeing Ted Williams
play his last games against the Yankees of Mantle and Berra. I watched Jackie
Robinson and the other Dodgers of the 50’s at Ebbetts Field against Stan
Musial, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente. Later I saw Ali, Gretsky, watched the
Celtics and Lakers and Wooden’s UCLA teams with Kareem and Walton.
At the kitchen table, I recall my father talk of seeing Ruth run
the bases with his spindly legs, my grandfather talking of seeing Jack Johnson,
Dempsey, Tunney, and we watched Sugar Ray and Marciano on the black and white
little TV.
My dad loved golf. He was a self-described duffer, but he
admired Hogan, Snead, and then Palmer, Player, Nicklaus. We watched the charges
by Arnie’s Army and the black and white Masters as it turned into dazzling
color over the years.
And then there is this: I have
grown to love to play the game. It adds another dimension to my appreciation of
the watching. Part of baseball’s attraction was always that every boy and girl
had played it. I could imagine myself on the field catching fly balls, fielding
grounders.
I stand on a tee, drive the ball 220 yards and feel strong and
proud, as if I still have my youth. Then I think again: the pros drive the ball the length of a football
field ahead of mine. It is awesome. Yet, we can play the same ball, use similar
clubs, play some of the same courses.
I first became aware of Woods when I was sharing a law office
with two guys who played and followed the game in the 90’s. I had given it up
shortly after Greg was born and my obsession was work. I played some
racquetball for exercise and had no time for playing or even watching golf.
The other guys said that this kid, a prodigy who won 3 US
amateur titles was turning pro and might be the next Palmer or Nicklaus.
Standing in the hallway between our offices, I asked if he really was the real
deal. So many prodigies turn out to be duds. No, they assured me, this kid had
it.
So I began to watch again.
The ’97 Masters was shocking. At that level, the skill variance among competitors is close. It is unusual for anyone to win by more than one or
two strokes. Woods was 21, playing his first Major as a pro ... and won by 12
strokes. He then decided to alter his swing, to get even better. He won only
once the next year, but in ’99 he won 8 times, including one Major.
Geniuses separate themselves from others in obvious and measurable ways. Einstein's breakthroughs in 1905-1910 were like that. In sport it is even more obvious, though just as rare. Babe Ruth in 1920 hit more home runs than other teams. Gretzky's records are unapproachable.
In 2000, Tiger Woods won 9 times, including the US Open by 15, the British by 8, and won the PGA with his “C game” in a thrilling playoff against some guy who was playing his once-in-his-life chance. (That is another thing sport sometimes gives: a nobody, a journeyman, who has one moment of glory can win against one of the greats.)
Geniuses separate themselves from others in obvious and measurable ways. Einstein's breakthroughs in 1905-1910 were like that. In sport it is even more obvious, though just as rare. Babe Ruth in 1920 hit more home runs than other teams. Gretzky's records are unapproachable.
In 2000, Tiger Woods won 9 times, including the US Open by 15, the British by 8, and won the PGA with his “C game” in a thrilling playoff against some guy who was playing his once-in-his-life chance. (That is another thing sport sometimes gives: a nobody, a journeyman, who has one moment of glory can win against one of the greats.)
When Woods won the next Masters in April 2001, he held all four
major pro tournaments. No one had ever done that, not Arnie, Jack, not even
Bobby Jones.
CABLANASIAN
And that rose another point. Tiger’s father, Earl, was a black
man. His mother, Kutilda, was Thai. The kid described himself as “Ca-bla-na-sian,”
that is, a mix of many races. Sport often provides some kind of profound
metaphor for popular culture. Jackie Robinson is the most obvious one: the
first to break the color barrier in major league baseball when that sport was
the most popular game. Ali was an icon of the ‘60’s.
I had another childhood illusion: my Brooklyn Dodgers were
“good” against the “evil” Yankees; workers versus management, liberals versus
pinstripe conservatives; underdogs against power.
Black performers changed all sports. They brought a unique flair
to their performance that kept your eyes glued to them whenever they were on
the field or court. Jackie danced off bases, dared pitchers to throw, stole the
base — even stole home in the World Series. Then came Willie Mays, cap flying,
basket catches. Jim Brown in football exhibited power, speed, grace, elusiveness, all with a
contemptuous sneer. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and many others changed their
sports for the better.
Tiger Woods brought that style to the staid old rich white
gentleman’s game. He crushed opponents with a steely-eyed glare. When he sunk a
winding thirty-foot putt that no one else could hope to make, he didn’t merely
tip his cap to acknowledge the cheers, he forced a fist pump into the air like
an Ali uppercut, as if to knock the air out of the stomachs of the hundred
others trying to beat him.
The crowd got it, wanted more and he “moved the needle” even
more than Arnie and his army ever did. The TV promoters loved it. The corporate
sponsors drooled. So did the other pro golfers once they noticed that where
they used to play for thousands, now they played for millions — I mean of fans
AND dollars.
The tradition-soaked white establishment were appalled by Woods' shenanigans. Sure, the teenage Bobby Jones threw tantrums, but when he matured he became the perfect gentlemen, respectful and humble. Palmer, the people's hero, looked like a Pittsburgh steamfitter, but on the course he was honorable and a fine sportsman.
Woods often scared the TV director by emitting guttural curses when he missed a shot. He brought rowdy young people among the "patrons" and "galleries" of golf spectators, and they responded to his gestures with unseemly noises that shook the air. "In the hole!" they screamed on tee shots made from more than 500 yards away; when Woods finished a hole many began to move on to the next one before other golfers had their chance to play.
Woods often scared the TV director by emitting guttural curses when he missed a shot. He brought rowdy young people among the "patrons" and "galleries" of golf spectators, and they responded to his gestures with unseemly noises that shook the air. "In the hole!" they screamed on tee shots made from more than 500 yards away; when Woods finished a hole many began to move on to the next one before other golfers had their chance to play.
The reality show demands drama, an arc that takes the hero or
anti-hero from the bottom to the top and back to the bottom. In sports that arc is inevitable; whether
due to the law of regression to the mean, or the physical demands on the body,
or the mental demands on the ego, or simply the passage of time and aging, things
change and human frailties take over.
Ali in decline took punches to his head that would lead to his
premature aging, Mays dropped fly balls for the Mets in is last year. These
were pitiful sights that touched us. They are intimations of our own mortality.
One of the things that made Woods an idol was his commitment to
fitness. Palmer changed the sport in his time because he was not soft or fat,
like our image of golfers, who, like bowlers, could drink a beer and smoke a
cigarette while playing. Woods took it to a much higher level, gaining strength
and endurance and power in the gym and running miles every day. He violated the
conventional rules that said weight lifting and muscle mass was anathema to the
subtle touch and feel that golf required.
On screen he looked like an athlete, the equal of Roger Federer
or Jordan. At 6’1”, 180, he could be a defensive back in the NFL, many NFL
players said. He was admired as an equal by Federer, Jordan, Griffey.
Bill James, the founder of SABR-metrics, dissected baseball
statistics with a scalpel and computer to define the greatest of all time (the
GOAT). He differentiated between those who were great for their “peak seasons”
and those who had great longevity.
Golf does similarly. Palmer, for instance, won the Masters four
times, and three other Majors, but all between 1958 and 1964 when he was 35. While
he won many other tournaments, he never won another Major. (In golf, the Majors
— four big events during the summer season: the Masters, U.S. Open, British
Open, and PGA Championship — are the measure of historic superiority, partly
because they attract the best players from around the world, and the most
attention from the media. The term was first applied in the early 1900’s and
stuck.) Jack Nicklaus is considered the greatest golfer who ever lived because
he won 18 Majors, from 1962 to 1986, when he was 46 — a remarkable 24 year
span.
As a child, it was reported, Woods had a poster with Nicklaus’s
picture and the Majors record on his bedroom wall. It was his goal. When he won
his first, the ’97 Masters, by 12 strokes, it struck Nicklaus and all others as
a lightning bolt. A black man (the only one in the field) won the tournament in
a place, the Augusta National in Georgia, a shrine of Southern white privilege,
the creation of Bobby Jones (who is a Southern icon as meaningful to Southern
ideals as Robert E. Lee).
Woods then went on to win fourteen Majors in the next ten years,
including the Masters three more times. He won three in one calendar year and
then the Masters at the start of the next, and so he had all four on his mantel
at once.
Bobby Jones in 1930 had won the four Majors of that era (that
included two purely amateur events). The adoring press, dominated by Southern
gents like Grantland Rice, labeled it “The Grand Slam” after the bridge term
for a clean sweep. Critics now carped that Tiger’s achievement was not a true
Grand Slam because the fourth, the Masters, came the next April. Still, it has
come to be known as “The Tiger Slam,” and no one has come close to equaling it
since.
In non-Majors, Palmer won a total of 62, Nicklaus 73. By the
summer of 2008, Woods had won 65 tournaments after winning the U.S. Open that
June. But at 32, his body was beginning to fail. During the five days of the
tournament, he grimaced every time he swung, obviously in great pain. Turned
out he had broken bones in his knee. Still, he led going into the final round.
But he fell behind, limping to the end. On the 72nd hole he had to
make a difficult putt to get into a playoff (with another of the severl
journeyman that gave him the most trouble, Rocco Mediate.) He had to play
another 18 in excruciating pain, 90 holes of extraordinary golf over five days,
to win his fourteenth Major.
After rest and another procedure on his legs, he came back the
next year to win six more tournaments. But in the PGA, he lost to an another unknown
(Y.A. Yang) who had a career day, the first time he had lost a Major while
starting the final day in the lead.
NOVEMBER, 2009 - MAY, 2017
Then, in November, a report surfaced in a tabloid that he had an
extramarital affair. His wife read it, and they argued. He left, and crashed
his car. The media exploded, and so did his marriage and his image as clean-cut
hero. It was a “Say-it-ain’t-so” moment. Corporate sponsors dropped him
quickly. He had to give a mea culpa speech that sounded as lame and scripted as
those of other famous transgressors.
In the next decade, Woods would suffer physical and mental
anguish. He would win more tournaments, but his back gave out. The golf swing
puts great pressure on the spine: neck, wrist, hips, and especially, back. He
played and won sporadically; some years he couldn’t play at all. He couldn’t
finish some rounds, limping off in front of TV cameras that had shown him
barely able to walk at all. Still, when he could contend, he could still win.
In 2013, he felt well enough to win six times, and was voted Player Of The
Year, the equal of MVP in team sports) for a record eleventh time (Jack won it
five times).
But then his back went out again. Over the next few years, he
tried three surgical procedures, all without success. At one point, he couldn’t
bend down to play with his children. In May, 2017, he hit the bottom. He was
arrested for DUI of a mix of painkillers and sleeping drugs while dozing in his
car on the side of a road. A mugshot of his droopy-lidded unshaved face exposed
a broken man.
It was a familiar tragedy, the once-great athlete now fallen
into disgrace, mired in a self-medicated stupor, a shell of his former
greatness.
After the typical cry for help, the report of another rehab. He
had gone to “couples counseling” and “sex addiction” therapy to try to save his
marriage and his image — and lost both. He underwent a desperate back surgery,
spinal fusion, that sometimes, but not even most of the time, allows for
pain-free movement. He later said he did it more to allow himself to be able to
play a little with his kids, rather than to play golf again.
Woods resigned himself to a new role. He was named an assistant
in the annual team events in pro golf: the Ryder Cup and President’s Cup. And,
amazingly, while he mentored the young group of golfers who were competing,
Woods found something he had not expected.
Tiger Woods had always stood apart from his peers — if there
were any “peers.” Like Ben Hogan in his era, Woods presented a stoic presence,
usually close-mouthed, talking only of winning. He wasn’t even at his best in
these team events. His focus and energy was devoted to himself. His father had
taught him to “win for yourself, not for me or anyone else.”
He did have some friends among golfers. Mark O’Meara, John Cook,
Fred Couples, who had mentored him. Notah Begay, III, his Native-American
teammate from Stanford, was a lifelong buddy.
But, unlike his longtime rival, Phil Mickelson, Woods wasn’t a
back-slapping, gee whiz hail-fellow. Phil curried the crowds the way Arnie did,
making a grand show of being a good loser, something he did to Woods for a long
time. Phil’s game was like Arnie’s, mercurial and thus sporadically great,
often poor. Tiger’s game was more like Jack’s, methodical, clever, powerful but
subtle. Woods had a historic streak of “cuts” made. (Each event takes four
days: starting with up to 150 players, it is cut in half after the first two
days. Woods rarely missed a cut, grinding to make it on those rare days when he
didn’t have his best stuff.)
To the media, Woods has always seemed sullen, cautious, so
protective of his image that he never admitted any vulnerability. That always
annoyed journalists, who always want a better story. Now they had one; a big
story. And he would have his comeuppance. The press jumped all over it.
When he had his great fall, many critics were relieved. He had
failed the moral test, cheated on his wife, was promiscuous with many other
women. The published photos exposed something that didn’t have to be stated: he
cheated on his blond white wife with other blond Vegas “bimbos.”
Tiger had never been a “race man” the way the Jackie or Bill
Russell or Jim Brown had been. Like Jordan, he had steered away from racial
issues. Woods idolized his father, who had been a Green Beret in Vietnam, where
he had met his second wife, Kutilda, in Thailand. Tiger was named for an army
pal of Earl’s.
The media now treated him as if his transgressions were as great
as O.J. Simpson’s. It seemed that the press was more offended by his mortal sin
of deceiving them than deceiving his wife. He fooled them about his image, and
now they were getting revenge.
The media gloated over photos of him bending to the ground in
agony, and the final mugshot, and video of him slumped in the seat of his car
the night of his arrest were the final nails in his public relations coffin.
But the public loves stories of redemption. He showed up as a
coach at the team events. Woods became friends with this new crop of stars.
Turns out, they all had idolized him when they were kids. As athletes who excelled at many sports, they all had turned
to golf in order to emulate the Tiger they saw on TV, the dude who made the
sport cool, who looked and acted like a powerful athlete. Dustin Johnson,
Justin Thomas, Ricky Fowler, Brooks Koepka --these guys work out in gyms, bulk
up, drive the ball further than anyone, just like he did.
In the needling way that athletes always show their affection
for peers, they urged the “old man” to get back into it. And his competitive
juices began to stir again. As he felt physically better toward the end of 2017
after his spinal fusion healed, he began to swing clubs. Still uncertain, he
took baby steps. In 2018, he began to play. He showed flashes of his old self,
but missed some cuts and faltered often. Gradually, he was gaining confidence
and regaining his technique.
For a time, he had stumbled when trying the subtle short shots
around the green that had been his specialty. His chunked and stubbed shots
looked amateurish, a shocking result that led some commentators to tsk-tsk with
disdain.
“He has the yips,” they insisted, applying a label that implies a hopeless state that marked the end of many careers. Hogan and Snead each had the “putting yips,” a mental block neither could overcome under the enormous pressure of golf events.
“He has the yips,” they insisted, applying a label that implies a hopeless state that marked the end of many careers. Hogan and Snead each had the “putting yips,” a mental block neither could overcome under the enormous pressure of golf events.
The critics overlooked the possibility that Woods was learning
to play with a spine that had fused vertebrae, demanding new techniques and
denying him the hundreds of hours of practice that honed such skills. But he
persisted and found a way. His “touch” returned.
He began to drive the ball for distance, perhaps not quite the
prodigious distance of DJ or the other longest of the new kids, but respectably
long. And his short game recovered. The critics couldn’t believe it.
“But his putting isn’t what it used to be,” they still insisted.
“But his putting isn’t what it used to be,” they still insisted.
That was another part of the game that had set Woods apart from
all but Nicklaus. Like Jack, he was able always to control his nerves and
concentration to summon his extraordinary hand-eye coordination and skill at
predicting the slope and speed of greens under the enormous pressure — with
millions of eyes on him, with the win on the line, with hundreds of thousands
of dollars riding on it — to sink the essential putt.
For stretches of time, in our memories, he never seemed to miss
an important one. From three feet, from ten feet, and much further away, he
never missed any, not when he had to make one!
The highlight reel of his putts curling from left to right and
left again, from a plateau down to a gully, at a 90° angle, and into the cup!
The crowd cheered with what came to be called “The Tiger Roar,” greater even
than those of Arnie’s Army when he was charging up the back nine. Now, he
wasn’t making those, not all of them. He three-putted more times than he used
to.
And now the phrase, “used to” began to be repeated more and
more. I am familiar with it in my own life. My friends often whine, “I used to
hit the ball a long way” ... “I used to win all the time.” I tease them about
it. It is a mark of the has-been, the “used-to-be.” It is the ripest sign of
aging.
The golf pro and announcer, Johnny Miller, who himself suffered
from injuries and putting woes that ended his career, remarked that over the
age of forty, no one sinks as before. It is the start of the end.
The stats were piled against Woods. Few in their forties have
ever won Majors. No one has come back to prominence after back surgery. No one
with the “yips” comes back to former greatness. In ’97 Woods revolutionized the
game and shocked the golf world by overpowering Augusta National. He drove the
ball so far that they had to lengthen golf courses to try to “Tiger proof”
them. He’s now lost that advantage. Statistically, he ranks far below the young
guns.
Woods, also like Nicklaus, intimidated his competition. One
famously said of Jack: “He knows he is going to win; you know he is going to
win; and he knows you know he is going to win.” The same was true of Woods in
his prime. When he was in the lead, the others had no chance: he knew it, they
knew it, and he knew they knew it. Some admitted, “We are all playing for
second place.” The betting line always had Woods or ... the field. To catch
him, his steadiness forced other contenders to take risks and thus to make
mistakes. He kept pressing forward, never satisfied with just winning.
He set goals. In the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach, he entered
the final round so far ahead that he could have coasted to the win. But he
decided to play the final round with no mistakes, no bogeys, nothing worse than
par. On some holes he was at risk of missing his goal, but he grinded and never
faltered. He finished the tournament twelve under par, while his nearest
competitor was three OVER par, fifteen strokes behind.
Now, the critics predicted, this new crop won’t be intimidated
by him. When Woods came along, the previous generation, who still had hopes of
contending — Couples, Faldo, Norman, et al — knew it was over for them. And his
contemporaries — Els, Goosen, Harrington, Garcia, Mickelson, Singh — pressed so hard
to keep up and almost always faltered under his gaze.
Playing in the same group with Woods in any tournament, but
especially a Major or one of the events created to cash in on his talent — with
fields limited to the best of the best — The Players Championship (he won
twice), the Fed Ex Cup Series (he won the first one and the third); and a series
of four annual World Golf Championships (he won 18 times).
In baseball, if you safely hit in only three of each nine at bats, you will be in the Hall of Fame (a symbol of the rarity of excellence, attained by only a small percent of the best players in the sport).
In golf, most pro golfers play at least 20 tournaments a year, 4
of which are Majors. If in 20 years, the pro wins 20 times, including 1 Major,
he will make the Hall of Fame. Phil Mickelson has won 45 times, including 5
Majors. He has won 7% of the time he has tried. Woods has won 23%.
From ’96 – ’08, his win percentage was almost 40%, far ahead of anyone in history, a statistic made even more amazing because he, unlike Phil or any other pro, played only the event with the strongest fields on the toughest courses.
From ’96 – ’08, his win percentage was almost 40%, far ahead of anyone in history, a statistic made even more amazing because he, unlike Phil or any other pro, played only the event with the strongest fields on the toughest courses.
2018: THE COMEBACK
"There are no second acts in American lives." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
By the start of 2018, the consensus among all observers, whether
gloating or saddened, whether gadflies, talking heads, or old pros, (and
including myself and others) predicted that he would never win another
tournament, much less another Major. He might continue to try in order to
placate his sponsors (Nike swoosh on hat and shirt) and keep his “brand”
afloat, and he might occasionally contend in some tournaments, but the best he
could hope would be to become another journeyman, a once-was, an average
also-ran in the field.
He began to contend in 2018, showing spurts of excellence, and
then some stretches of brilliance, and then reaching the last day with chances
to win — in the British Open on the back nine. And then at the PGA, he chased
Koepka with a final round 64 that fell just short of catching the young stud.
But neither Molinari in the Open nor Koepka had
blinked as Tiger’s opponents used to, proof, the pundits smirked, that he no
longer could win by intimidation.
The FedEx Cup Series of three grueling events, that winnows the
field from 125, down to 70, and then to the best, the hottest 30 golfers at the end
of the season, was his crucible. Woods barely qualified, barely survived, and snuck
into the final event.
He had proved that his back would hold up, that his endurance
would, at 42, allow him to make it. But against 29 of the best young athletes,
could he finish? He had been the best finisher in history, almost always
winning from in front, but now, could he do it again.
In the final round of the Tour Championship, he was paired with
Rory McIlroy. Rory, 29, won 4 Majors since 2012, and is considered by many to
be the best of this “post Tiger” generation. Also in the field was Justin Rose,
Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, and Dustin Johnson. All had held number 1 in world
ranking, at least for some weeks in the "post Tiger" era.
Woods had held #1 for stretches of 5 years twice, last
ranking #1 in 2013. By 2017 he had plummeted, ranked below more than 1,000 of
the best players in the world. At the start of 2018, he was 700th. Now,
he had worked his way all the way to among the top 30.)
By the end of that day, the TV cameras showed him strolling up
the 18th fairway with Rory conceding his win, while hundreds of fans
marched behind and among them in a scene that made YouTube and Sportscenter
explode. Proving all the critics wrong, Tiger Woods HAD won again, beating all
the best current players, most of whom were small children in 1997.
Okay, the critics conceded. Tiger came back and won another, his
80th tournament. Impressive. He is only 2 behind Snead’s 82. But,
and it is a huge but: he still won’t ever regain dominance, never the
intimidation factor. Sure, Rory wilted at the Tour Champs, but Koepka held him
off at the PGA, and Molinari, the spunky little Italian, didn’t blink in the British
Open and took him down in the Ryder Cup when Tiger was totally whipped by
everyone, an old man wheezing to the finish. Jack’s record of 18 Majors is
still safe.
The Masters is the first Major of the 2018-19 golf season that
started in October. There have already been about 20 tournaments. Woods had
competed in just a few: Torrey Pines, The Players, The WGC in Mexico and the
Match Play. He hadn’t won any, and only in the Match Play had he shown any sign
that he might win again. After besting Rory, he was beaten by another unknown
face-to-face. Tiger throughout his career showed that he could beat the best,
yet at times, he might lose to a journeyman: Bob May, Y. A. Yang, and now, a
Dane, Bjeeregard. And he missed a three footer, something he never “used to”
do.
Has he fallen back? Was the Tour win a one-shot deal. That is
the lesson of history. The greats may show flashes of their old greatness, but
they will never climb to the heights again. Even those who stuck by him and
believed he would win again never expected him to regain his previous
dominance. That was impossible.
And now the Masters is over. Tiger Woods, at age 43, wins his 15th
Major, 5th Masters, his 81st PGA win. For the first time,
he came from behind. In every previous Major win, he had been leading or tied
for the lead going into the final round. Critics always conceded that he is
“the best front runner ever” but he could never
come from behind to win a Major. That is considered a flaw, a character defect
that diminishes him in the eyes of his many critics. But now he did it. Not in
“his prime,” not when he can outdistance every other player, not when he is 20
years older than the others.
Brandon Chamblee is a former journeyman pro golfer who contended
in a few tournaments twenty years ago and won once in his career. Since then,
he has become an “expert” commentator on the Golf Channel and in articles in golf
magazines. He is a self-styled expert on the golf swing, able to expound
articulately about the differences between Hogan’s (who he idolizes as a fellow
Texan), and Jack’s, as well as Nelson’s, Snead’s ... and of course Tiger’s.
Chamblee has made a reputation as a severe critic of Tiger:
challenging his many swing changes, citing technical flaws that he claims
reduced his efficiency, decrying his coaching changes — from Harmon to Haney to
Foley and others. Tiger, he cries, has wasted his talent, underachieved, and
frittered a chance to be the greatest of all time. He will never get the
chance again to match the GOAT, Jack Nicklaus.
Like economists, Chamblee's grasp of statistics intimidates other commentators who can't summon arguments to contest his forceful numbers-based opinions.
He can quote voluminous statistics to prove his points: that
Tiger ranks poorly in driving distance and accuracy, putting consistency, his "strokes gained' rankings in every statistical category were pathetic. Chamblee was the first
to call Tiger's chipping difficulties the “yips,” citing the history of that chronic illness to prove that
Tiger would never win again.
Of course, Chamblee pays lip service to Woods as one of the greats of the
past, but he maintains that his idols, Hogan and that other Southern gent, Bobby
Jones, were better people, and Nicklaus is the GOAT. Even when Chamblee’s adored
statistics favor Woods, he can always find another one that casts doubt and
diminishes Woods — in his firmly held opinion, which he urges as if it is gospel truth.
Going into this Masters, Chamblee opined that Woods didn’t drive
or putt well enough to contend with McIlroy, his current fave, or even any of
the others. Then, when Molinari led Tiger and Finau by two strokes going into
the last day at the Masters, Chamblee cited more stats to prove that Molinari had to
win. And of course, he eagerly repeated, Tiger had never won coming from behind.
The flaw in Chamblee’s reasoning is his reliance on incomplete statistics.
Like opinion polls, they are snapshots of past performance, and only suggest,
but by no means guarantee, future outcomes (as the stock market disclaimers
always warn us). All sports rely on numbers to measure performance, and the numbers (now called analytics) often replace the judgment of experienced eyes in judging excellence and predicting outcomes.
But the fact is that an aging pitcher who used to throw 100 mph can still win by guile, changing speeds, knowing the batter's weaknesses, etc. "Clutch" is a term experienced observers apply to someone who may fail under average conditions, but who, when the game is on the line, can be depended on to succeed more often than others.
There are few analytics that can measure this value.
There are few analytics that can measure this value.
GOAT TO GOAT
After the tournament was over, Jack Nicklaus over the phone from
Florida, was interviewed on the show that Chamblee shares with David Duval and
Frank Nobilo.
Nicklaus said he knew Tiger would win as soon as Molinari put his tee shot in the water on hole 12 and Tiger drove his to the middle of the green.
Nicklaus said he knew Tiger would win as soon as Molinari put his tee shot in the water on hole 12 and Tiger drove his to the middle of the green.
Tiger had done the smart, conservative thing, the thing that
Jack had always done under similar pressure, in order to win. Tiger, Jack
observed, had been driving poorly in prior tournaments this season, but on the back nine today, with the Masters at
stake, he drove brilliantly, hitting fairways on 13, 14, 15, and 17 with lengthy drives. Augusta is considered a "second shot course" because the approaches to the green are what separate the winner from also rans. And Tiger's iron play was the best Jack had ever seen.
Once he gained the lead, his putting from long distance was
precise, allowing him to make the needed birdies and pars, and even the bogies
that kept him ahead. He made the short ones that he had not made earlier in the
year. The ones he had missed the first two days of the Masters, Jack knew, were
due to the unusual slowness of the greens after the heavy season of rains had
take the fire out of the traditionally blazing fast undulating Augusta greens. It took Tiger time to adjust. By Saturday he had figured it out. By Sunday afternoon, he had, well, Mastered them.
David Duval, who had competed for his entire career against
Tiger, had teamed with him, and had lost his #1 rank to him as well as many chances at
winning Majors, had predicted early in the week that Woods would win the
Masters. Noblilo had been in the announcer’s booth on 12 and marveled at the
outcome when Koepka, Poulter, Molinari, and Finau all made crucial mistakes
while Woods calmly took advantage and won.
Chamblee was strangely subdued during the show, tight-lipped,
and unapologetic, never once uttering the admission that he had been wrong.
Woods, he grumbled, was “an enigma.” He meant that he could not understand, and
statistics could not explain, how Woods had done it.
Again.
But the stats were revealing.
Chamblee and others had said the
winner had to score best on the 4 par 5’s. In ’97, Woods had destroyed them,
scoring 13 under par on those holes. That was due to his driving dominance,
something he now lacks. McIlroy, Rose, DJ, Koepka, and many others outdrive him. Compared to any of them, Tiger's par 5 stats so far this year are weak. That is why he can’t win.
Well, in this Masters, Woods scored just 8 under par on the par 5’s, never eagled
any of them. But he used his precise iron game to score on the par 3’s and par
4’s, especially in the final round. Woods led the field in greens-in-regulation,
a testament to his iron game and his intelligence, as Jack Nicklaus understood.
Nicklaus, always the gentleman and good sport, repeated what he
has said before: no one wants their records broken, but he never wanted anyone,
much less Tiger, to fail due to injury. Let him try, compete, and if he beats
me, so be it.
So, he joked, now that Tiger’s back, “I am shaking in my boots.”
