Tiger Joins Elite Company
I’m far from what you would call a golf guy. I know maybe ten players on the PGA tour, have never played a round in my life and my greatest education on the sport comes from Rick Reilly columns, “Caddyshack” and “Happy Gilmore”. My lifetime highlights in the sport all involve mini-golf or video games, and I barley can hit the ball 100 yards at the driving range.
Yet last weekend I couldn’t turn away from the US Open. Scheduled during the heart of the baseball season and the NBA Finals, it would have been easy for me to ignore the guys wearing goofy hats whacking a sitting ball in dead silence. And for many years, I have done just that. But for some reason, I tuned in on Saturday afternoon. And two days later, when Tiger Woods finally defeated Rocco Mediate on the first sudden death hole after the full course playoff, I was convinced I had seen one of the greatest sporting events of the past decade.
Woods and Mediate traded blows like two heavyweight fighters, but instead of uppercuts and jabs, it was drives and chips. Tiger would sink a long put to save par, and Rocco would top him by nailing a birdie to take a one-stroke lead. This lasted for three consecutive days until the 91st hole, when Mediate’s putt to tie went right, giving Woods the National Championship and his 14th win in a major tournament.
But it wasn’t only the fabulous competition between the two athletes that made the Open a sight to behold. It helped the Mediate became a huge fan favorite; the first guy to look Woods in the eye and actually think to himself that he had a chance to win. It was a nice bonus that the event was held at Torrey Pines in San Diego, a course that challenged the golfers but didn’t make it impossible to succeed. And there’s no doubt that the drama of it being a major championship helped add to the drama. But most of all, it was Tiger.
There are very few people who have ever played professional sports that have an aura of invincibility around them like Tiger Woods has. There was Babe Ruth in the 1920’s, Muhammad Ali in the ’60s, Michael Jordan in the ’90s and Tom Brady at the start of this decade. These guys not only were the best at their sport, but they knew it. Tiger’s like that, plus more. Woods doesn’t just smile when he makes a good shot; he pumps his fist like he’s going to knock out Oscar de la Hoya. He doesn’t wish his competitors luck at the start of a round; he looks them in right in the face so they know they are doomed. And he wears the same red Nike shirt every Sunday, letting his competition know he’s out for their blood.
But strangely, Tiger doesn’t have the universal love that Ruth, Ali, MJ and Brady all had. Some complain he’s too easy to root for, because the game comes so easy to him. When Woods chips in from the sand for an eagle, like he did on the 17th hole on Saturday, nobody is surprised, because it’s about as common as Jessica Biel getting corny pick-up lines from admiring men. Others state that he has no respect for the sport. When he throws a club after a bad shot, nobody is disgusted, because we know how much he cares about his craft. And then there’s the standard complaint that he is too boring, because when he wins – like he has done so many times before – we all shake our head and imagine what it would be like to be so good at a game.
I think Woods is such an interesting figure because we the public really have no clue who he really is. When he is on the course, he rarely smiles and is often seen gritting his teeth in disgust, even when he is doing well. But as soon as the round is over, and he gets to see his wife and daughter, he breaks out the biggest smile in the world. During the final round of a tournament, Tiger looks like he not only is obsessed with golf, but that he has no hobbies outside of golf. But then there are pictures of him sitting courtside at an Orlando Magic game or buying a 75-foot yacht and you realize he’s your typical 33-year old billionaire. Still, I have no clue if he plays golf because he enjoys it, like Ken Griffey, Jr. does baseball, or because he’s just really good at it, like Randy Moss in football.
The greatness of the US Open was Woods versus Mediate, the all-time superstar against the journeyman on his one chance for glory. It was also Woods versus his injured left leg, the one with the torn ACL and fractured tibia. Tiger, the one I can’t figure out, played through excruciating pain for five days, walking up and down the course like everybody else, using his clubs as canes. The performance reminded me of Jordan’s flu game versus the Jazz in the 1997 NBA Finals combined with Ali’s 1974 Rumble in the Jungle versus George Foreman. Jordan played through horrible fatigue – he spent the entire day before the game in bed, throwing up into a bucket – and still managed to score 37 points. Ali used the rope-a-dope to wear down Foreman, waiting until the eighth round to finally land a combination of punches to knockout the future grill salesman. Woods had the pain of MJ and the endurance of Ali to not only survive the 91 holes, but to come out on top.
Of course, the win came at a price. Woods announced the next day he will have surgery and mix the rest of 2008. Still, his performance last weekend at the US Open was worth it. It got me thinking about who the real Tiger Woods is, but even more extraordinary, it actually got me to watch golf.
Tags: fractured tibia, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Rocco Mediate, Tiger Woods, torn ACL, US Open
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