Tag: Tiger Woods

Holy shit!

What else can you say to Tiger Woods winning the Master’s in 2019, 11 years after his last major victory and 14 years since his last win in Augusta? It was a pretty insane weekend down at Augusta National.

First, a big shout out to Mother Nature. Usually if I’m discussing her I’m calling her a bitch. But by threatening severe storms in Georgia, and thus moving the tournament’s final round up to Sunday morning, and also raining out C’s track meet here in Indy, I was able to watch every second of Sunday’s glorious coverage.

Well, not every second. I took a 15 minute break around 10:30 to get a quick shower just in case I was forced to leave the house at some point. That shower came at a good time, right when Tiger had had a rough patch on the front nine. My showering seemed to both improve my odor and his game, as he was birdieing #7 when I sat back on the couch.

Favorite shot of the week: I think the easy choice is Tiger’s tee shot on 16 Sunday, that was pretty much perfect. Well, not as perfect as Bryson Dechambeau or Justin Thomas, who both carded aces earlier in the day. Tiger’s missed the cup by about three inches and left him with a tap-in for birdie. Pretty, pretty good.

But I’ll go with something that came earlier and was more impressive. His first putt on #9. It was a tricky 40 or so footer. He aimed well away from the hole to grab the ridge and then had to get the speed just right so that the ball didn’t zoom past the hole once it caught the downslope. It was a ridiculous shot that took nearly 20 seconds from impact to when it came up inches shy of the hole. Twice it looked like it was coming to a dead stop, only to find a nudge of gravity to slowly rotate again. It was utterly insane. One writer I follow, who has seen a lot of golf, said it was the best lag putt he had ever seen. Tiger was not hitting the ball great at this point, and it seemed like Francesco Molinari was going to par his way to the title. But that putt showed that Tiger was capable of something no one else was and, I believe, gave him confidence in himself for the back nine.

And, come on, that might have been the greatest back nine ever. The final two groups to go through 12 put four balls in Rae’s Creek. I was literally yelling at the TV, “OH MY GOD!!!” as balls kept coming up short. In the midst of that, Tiger hits a sublime and safe shot, pars the hole, and is suddenly tied for the lead. Molinari hits a terrible second shot on 15, then catches a tree branch and ends up in the water again, effectively ending his day. Meanwhile Tiger is striping the ball off the tee, looking like his vintage self.

But wait. Up ahead Brooks Koepka, Ricky Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Xander Shauffele, and Patrick Cantlay are all trying to get into it. I’m pretty sure there was a two or three minute stretch were 20 or 30 guys were tied for the lead. Cantlay momentarily took the lead with an eagle on 15, only to play 16 with a brutal bogey. My favorite tweet of the day was from someone who said, after Cantlay’s eagle, “NOT FUCKING NOW PATRICK!!!”

That kind of summed up the day. As the back nine at Augusta tends to do, it was giving us terrific drama. There was like a 15–20 minute stretch where CBS showed us an important shot every 10–15 seconds. It was both amazing and dizzying to watch. But we didn’t want drama, we wanted Tiger.

Hey, some props to CBS. They tend to take a lot of heat in the golf circles I follow for their coverage. Most folks I follow believe NBC does a much better job showing the game. Likely because it was Augusta and they aren’t totally in control, CBS mostly got out of the way and let the golf present itself. Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo did say some stupid shit, but that’s to be expected.

Further props for wiping out their morning schedule and showing golf for nearly six hours. The annual complaint about the Masters is the limited TV schedule on the weekend. Good on the Augusta management and CBS for making it work.

Another fine moment from the weekend: that freaking security guy who nearly took out Tiger on Friday. Imagine if he had actually taken Tiger’s knee out as he crashed into him???

So, really, how did this happen? No matter how good they once were, guys in their 40s with fused backs, reconstructed knees, and nearly a decade of personal issues are not supposed to come back and win majors. Not in an era that is filled with much younger, physically gifted, ridiculously talented golfers. Yet here we are and folks are talking, in dead seriousness, about Tiger running through the summer and winning the Grand Slam to tie Jack Nicklaus’ all time major championship record.

Let’s pump the breaks on that a little. It’s great that Tiger is competitive on the game’s biggest stage again. But I don’t think he’s anywhere near approaching the kind of dominance he had in his prime. Everything came together at Augusta. It probably won’t at Bethpage, Pebble Beach, or Royal Port Rush. But it’s fun that it is a possibility again. And, again, there is a huge swath of absolutely crazy talented players out there right now.[1]

For an old time Tiger fan, I found this to be an immensely entertaining and enjoyable weekend. No matter how I feel about him as a person, it’s hard not to get sucked into the hype machine that I was so in-tune with for a decade or so. But…

As remarkable as his physical rehabilitation is – and it’s a great story – I’m still not ready to brush away his other sins. As I said last fall, I really don’t care how an athlete or entertainer lives their life. But I can find it icky, for lack of a better word. And there’s no doubt Tiger lived an icky life for a long time, wrecking his family in the process. For all the emotional outpouring that came with his embrace of his kids and mother after his win, I kept thinking about how it was his fault that his kids have had a difficult time of it. I hope he’s a changed and better man. But how do we know, because he always presented himself as a good family man before he hit that fire hydrant and shit got weird. I’m just saying let’s not act like he’s some super perfect human being now just because he suffered, learned, maybe changed, and now occasionally laughs at himself.

Oh, it probably didn’t help that this weekend I was reading Hank Haney’s The Big Miss, about his years coaching Tiger, which coincided with all the ickyness becoming public. I’ll write more about the book later but it was a reminder that Tiger dug his own holes with both the icky behavior and a long run of strange behavior that likely caused/contributed to his physical breakdown.

So Tiger the guy, I’m still not on board with. Tiger the golfer? Yeah, I’m totally down with him, especially after this remarkable, unforgettable weekend at the Masters.

Another busy weekend with the kids. L had soccer both days – one win, one tie, four goals, two assists – M babysat for 8 hours Saturday and cheered on Sunday, and C ran on Sunday, getting 8th place with her strongest run of the year.

Thus I missed a lot of what was broadcast on the teevee over those two days. I was able to catch a lot of Tiger getting his first PGA Tour win in over five years. That was kind of special.

I guess one piece of my re-discovery of golf that I had not shared was how the Golf Channel became part of my regular viewing once we got cable hooked up in July. Our channel lineup is just a little different on Comcast than it was on Uverse. Part of the difference is a slightly more limited selection of sports channels. Also, the Golf Channel is much closer to ESPN than it was at the old house. So, the week of the British Open, I began watching the Golf Channel’s coverage. And then I just kept watching. Where ESPN shows a bunch of terrible, people shouting and arguing shows during the day, the Golf Channel generally had more traditional analysis of what was going on that week, highlights, live views of practice rounds or, on Thursdays and Fridays, quick looks at live action before their regular coverage began. It was just a good way to have some sports on the TV as background noise.

Oh, and it helped that Tiger was rounding into form just as I began watching.

So this past Thursday and Friday, I had TGC on the entire time the Tour Championship was on. Friday we had a furniture delivery. As the guys passed through the living room, they paused, looked at the TV, and asked, “Is Tiger still leading?” I wasn’t the only on paying attention.

I got home Sunday in time to watch Tiger finish on the 17th then the amazing scene on the 18th, as the galleries flooded in behind him on his walk to the green.

It reminded me of the one time I saw Tiger live, in the summer of his breakthrough 1998 season in Chicago at the old Western Open. We had a long drive back to Kansas City ahead of us, so after cruising the course for a few hours, we were only able to watch Tiger play the first hole. We posted up near the green so we could watch both his approach shot and then him finish the hole. I’ll never forget the vision of him coming up over the hill in the fairway, his familiar red shirt setting him out from the crowd. There was a strong sense of anticipation in the galleries and a gasp and buzz when we could see him. And this was young Tiger, when he had only won a single Major, not 14, and just a few PGA events, not 80. We didn’t rush onto the fairway behind him, but I know people would have if the marshals had dropped the ropes.

Tiger finished the hole, moved to the second, we raced to our car for the drive home, and periodically checked sports radio to follow his progress as he won the event.

I was all-in on the Tiger experience back then. And remained so until he fell apart. If Tiger was in contention, I was watching. Even if I had a baby on my chest or a toddler chatting away next to me.

But when his personal life fell apart, it was easy to turn off my interest in him. I was in my late 30s, a father of three, hadn’t played golf in years, and was disgusted by his behavior. Not that I was surprised: I worked at a golf course briefly in my teens and every pro at the course spent most of their time trying to sleep with every woman that came into the pro shop. Those guys were all shmoes working at a mediocre public course in California. The best golfer in the world, the most recognizable athlete on the planet chasing women left and right? Based on my limited experience with golf pros it was no surprise.[1]

So Tiger went in a box with Lance Armstrong, guys I once spent a ridiculous amount of time following, who I had admired greatly, but through hubris or stupidity or greed or a combination of all of those had taken dramatic and public falls from grace. Athletes I was a little embarrassed to have appreciated so much, whose histories I did my best not to talk about.[2]

Of course, there was more to Tiger’s story than just the personal issues. His game and perhaps his lifestyle – notably his fascination/obsession with special forces – destroyed his body. There were the knee injuries. And then the back injuries. Every so often Joe Posnanski would address the Tiger situation, after a reader or commentator suggested Tiger could still break Jack Nicklaus’ majors record. Joe would point out that most golfers suffer a serious decline in ability as they hit their mid–40s, and those were guys who were healthy. Then he would remind the questioner that Tiger had blown out a knee, had a back that required one, then two, then three, then four surgeries. Tiger, Joe said, may never win a silly season tournament, let alone a regular tour stop. Five more majors? That was ridiculous.

Tiger seemed to agree, suggesting as recently as last spring that his career might be over.

Maybe the past two months have been an aberration, a brief window of health in which Tiger got his game together and willed himself to a couple narrow losses and a very big win. Perhaps his back will break down when the adrenaline of the golf season passes, and next spring will bring a return to frustrating failures on the course. I hope that Tiger hasn’t had to mismanage his pain meds to get his body to comply with his requests of it.

All that is to say Joe Posnanski may still be right. When the 2019 golf calendar rolls around, there’s no guarantee that Tiger will be able to contend at Augusta and the other three majors. That’s what made this weekend so fun as a viewer and one-time Tiger maniac. I don’t know if he has his life together. I don’t know how I feel about him as a person, although being older has caused me to have less-and-less faith in athletes as people and made me focus more on their performance on the field, which makes it a little easier to separate man from game. I just know it’s been tremendously entertaining to watch him over the past two months, doing things I never thought he would do again.

Justin, Dustin, Ricky, Brooks, Bryson, Rory, and Jordan are the present and futures of golf. It was kind of nice for Tiger, even if only briefly, to put his name back in that conversation.

I remember hating how much my stepdad and other guys his age loved Jack Nicklaus winning the 1986 Masters. I couldn’t believe they wanted some washed-up, has-been like Jack to win instead of the brash, exciting, much younger Greg Norman.

If my stepdad was still around, he would have been laughing at me yesterday as I watched most of Tiger Woods’ final round at the PGA, hanging on to every shot like it was 2002 again.

Before we get to that, I should note that after a long, long time not having any interest in golf I’ve regained at least some of my love for the sport lately. I’ve been watching the Golf Channel a lot. I bought L a kids club and some foam balls to hit in the front yard. Unable to hit with her, I decided to go buy a super cheap set of starter clubs for myself. I checked out a couple golf books at the library. I discovered there’s a driving range close by I may actually go hit some balls at this week. Whether I actually start playing again is another thing. But I at least have some interest in the sport, both as a participant and spectator, again.

Before Tiger started doing his thing this weekend my attention was drawn by KU alum Gary Woodland leading after the first two rounds. I figured he wouldn’t hold on; no one wins majors wire-to-wire. He had a rough opening nine Saturday but righted the ship enough to play with Tiger on Sunday. As cool as it would have been for Woodland to win, as soon as Tiger started dropping birdies I was pulling hard for him.

When I pumped my fist after he dropped back-to-back birdies to close his front nine I realized I had become my stepdad in 1986, rooting for the old, washed-up, has-been guy.

M was hanging out in the kitchen and started asking questions.

“Why is everyone so excited for that guy? Hasn’t he been good forever?”

I explained, in very broad terms, that Tiger hadn’t won a major in a decade and had barely played over the course of several years because of injuries.

“How do you get injured in golf?!?!”

“When is this tournament over? Will you stop watching golf then?”

When I saw Tiger birdie again at 15 to go to –13, I let out a cheer before we had to leave for a neighborhood gathering. Although I set the DVR to record the rest of the day, I figured Tiger would probably come up just short. Not so much because of his age or his recent history, but more because Brooks Koepka just didn’t look like a dude who was going to lose. He looked a lot like a young Tiger, in fact, overwhelming the course and the field.

While at the party, I checked the scores and let out a groan when I saw Tiger had finished two strokes back. I remembered that putt on 11 that stopped right on the edge of the cup and somehow didn’t fall. Or the one at 14 that was inside the hole before spinning out for a bogey. Two strokes right there and maybe it’s a different end result. More likely Koepka finds another stroke somewhere down the stretch. It was his weekend, after all.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon. In recent years I’ve pretty much just watched the weekend parts of the Masters and then the same for the US and British Opens if we were home. Other golf tournaments I had no interest in watching. Partially because Tiger was gone. Partially because I hadn’t touched a club in ten years. But with L showing an interest in the sport that may pull me back in at least casually.[1]

Turns out there may be more to Tiger Woods’ return to prominence than anyone initially believed. There was Dropgate at the Masters. He may or may not have taken another incorrect drop while winning the Player’s Championship this past weekend. And now at least one marshall who was with Tiger Saturday is countering Woods’ claim that he was given an all clear when he grabbed his club and, allegedly, distracted Sergio Garcia as he took a swing.

Well, when they heard that remark from Woods, the marshals were surprised. One of them, Gary Anderson, said on Sunday, “He didn’t ask us nothing, and we didn’t say nothing. We’re told not to talk to the players.”

Hmmm. Now this is Tiger we’re dealing with, so that marshall could be full of shit.

But let’s explore the possibility that he is telling the truth. What if Tiger has come back to competitive golf with an even fiercer competitiveness than he had before. He burns to get to 18, and then 19, major titles to catch and pass Jack Nicklaus. And he knows his physical skills aren’t what they were 5-10 years. He needs every edge and angle he can get.

What if he’s come back as a WWE-style bad guy? He’s going to fudge his drops to get an advantage. He’s going to make noise while a competitor is swinging. He’s going to comment on the green conditions while his playing partner is lining up an important putt. Basically treat other golfers the way his dad treated him when he was a kid and trying to learn how to sharpen his concentration on the course.

Tiger was never really a good guy. People loved him because of the way he played and how often he won, not because he was a lovable guy like Arnold Palmer or a fundamentally decent and honorable guy like Nicklaus. Tiger spent most of his career being a complete dick, but he got away with it because we loved seeing him lap the field at Pebble Beach when no one else could play the course.

But he was never overtly bad, either.

There’s no evidence that Tiger has turned into a cheater and dirty competitor. But if things like this keep happening when he’s on the course, I’m going to start thinking he is. True or not, it will make golf a lot more interesting.