One for the Ages – Editorial – Stabroek News
It is a place steeped in tradition, one of which is the hosting of one of the most exclusive dinners to be held anywhere, the Champions Dinner, held in honour of the previous year’s winner, who has the task of selecting the menu.
Only past winners and a few select members of the Augusta National are invited, and they are required to don their famous ‘Green Jackets, which were placed on their shoulders by the previous year’s winner when they won the tournament. Only a first time winner is allowed to leave with his jacket which he is required to return to the clubhouse one year later, where it is permanently stored in a special cloakroom. Repeat winners are presented with their original jacket.
Nicklaus, probably more than most, could have empathised with Tiger. Despite their tremendous successes on the golf course, their lives off the greens, at that similar point of time in their careers, were far from rosy. At the age of forty-five, Nicklaus had discovered that his company, Golden Bear International, through bad investments was almost bankrupt and facing liabilities of almost US$150 million. Physically, he was suffering with recurring hip and back problems.
Now, here was his heir apparent, at the age of forty-one, surrendering. Woods, the former number one ranked player in the world, having enjoyed a record of 683 weeks at the top of the rankings, including 281 consecutive weeks from June 12, 2005 to October, 30, 2010, was on a permanent slide into oblivion. He had not won a major tournament since the 2008 US Open which he had conquered whilst playing with a broken leg.
Tiger’s personal life over the previous seven years inclusive of a messy divorce is well documented. The pain of public shame was only heightened by a series of injury problems, as he endured four knee operations and a number of spinal procedures. Forced to withdraw from the PGA Tour for seventeen months, including the entire 2015-16 PGA season following the surgeries, he could hardly get out of bed or sit or stand properly, as he battled intense pain. Swinging a golf club was out of the question.
Slowly, ever so slowly, under medical supervision, Woods began practicing again in late August. In December, 2017, then ranked 1187th, he returned to the PGA Tour, his first tournament since Dubai, shooting a score of eight under, to finish tied for ninth. In 2018, Woods played in eighteen PGA events, the most since 2012, finishing second at the PGA, the fourth major tournament. Two weeks earlier, at the British Open, Woods’ name had adorned the top of the leaderboard of a major for the first time on a Sunday since the 2011 Masters. Albeit, he faltered over the next two holes, dropping three strokes, to finish at five under, tied for sixth, as his playing partner, Francisco Molinari received the Claret Jug. In September, he won the TOUR Championship, his 80th PGA Tour victory, his first in five years, as he ascended to thirteenth in the player rankings
Last Sunday, a year after wondering if he would ever return to the heights of yore, Woods found himself in the final trio at the start of the fourth round of this year’s Masters. Having shot 67 on Saturday, his best score at Augusta since the final round in 2011, Woods at eleven under, would play alongside the two stroke leader, Molinari, and Tony Finau, with whom he was tied for second.
Tee off times were brought forward from the traditional afternoon start to avoid the anticipated inclement weather and the final trio hit the course at 9:20 am. Woods, dressed in his traditional Sunday red shirt, was poised to pounce. As CBS enjoyed its largest television audience to view a morning broadcast in thirty-four years, the spectators in attendance witnessed a gripping round of golf. As the final trio strode to the fifteenth hole, there was a five way tie atop the leaderboard. The young guns on the PGA Tour who had lamented not getting to play alongside Tiger, were now about, (no doubt to their later regrets), to get a taste of what their predecessors had had to endure. Tiger, the Legend, the Myth, was on the loose.
Tiger pounced immediately, birdieing the fifteenth, as Molinari, dropped two strokes and out of contention. On the par three sixteenth, Tiger hit an amazing shot off the tee, almost scoring a hole in hole, as the ball settled inches from the pin. He putted to take a two shot lead, as the crowd roared in approval. Out of nowhere he had snatched a two stroke lead. He parred the seventeenth, as Brooks Koepka failed to make up ground on the eighteenth. It was over barring Tiger doing something crazy. Hardly likely.
Despite bogeying the final hole, Tiger finished on minus thirteen, a stroke better than the three young guns tied for second, Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Xander Schauffele. Tiger Woods had grabbed his fifth Green Jacket, his fifteenth major. It was the first time he had won a major despite not having led after three rounds. His almost eleven year gap between majors is bettered by only four players who actually went eleven years between wins.
Tiger Woods has gone through a mental and physical pounding in the last nine years, the likes of which would be hard to match. He has defied logic, time, and history. Thanks to medical science and an iron will, he has clawed his way all the way back to sixth place on the players’ rankings as of Monday.
Tiger’s comeback will rank as one for the ages in all of sport. Can the man who revolutionised the game of golf take the sport to another level?
The bookmakers are nervous, especially after the losses they suffered over the weekend. The fans, sponsors and advertisers can hardly wait for the next major, the PGA, (now rescheduled to be the second major), which will be played from the 16th -19th May, on the Black Course at Bethpage State Park, on Long Island, New York, the scene of Woods’ second US Open victory, his eighth major championship, in 2002.
Comments
From Ronald Lammy:
Greetings, Cyril.
In recent weeks I had planned to commend you for the continued outstanding publications you have collated and presented. The diversity, relevance to various facets of our daily lives are a remarkable testimony to your superior intellectual acuity and concern for our well being and on-going successful lives. The Woods article is my second read this morning. What a story and an inspiration.
My take away are these words: …has gone through a mental and physical pounding in the last nine years,… He has defied logic, time, and history. Thanks to medical science and an iron will, he has clawed his way all the way back …
They give timely encouragement and motivate me to keep on even though my trials are minuscule to what he endured. I awoke rested and fairly excited at the day’s prospects after a day of good feelings. As different as my activities are from his Tiger’s, his exemplary accomplishments show path to achieving success.
Thanks my, Brother,
Ronald
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Why Don’t Women Get Comebacks Like Tiger Woods?
Lindsay Crouse | New York Times
Last Sunday, when Tiger Woods won the Masters after his long drought, it was more than just one of the most incredible comebacks in history. It showed America’s eagerness to embrace a man who persevered through years of setbacks, especially self-inflicted ones, regardless of whatever selective amnesia that requires.
America does Love a COMEBACK: Achievement in sports somehow makes us more willing to compartmentalize, to forgive transgressions, to make a complicated man more deserving of public redemption. And Woods, at age 43, needed a lot of redeeming. His fall from grace started in 2009 when his wife caught him cheating with multiple women and continued through 2017 when he pleaded guilty to reckless driving.
As he plotted his comeback, Woods has emerged as a unique figure — both President Barack Obama and President Trump applauded him. Mr. Trump will even award him a medal. This ability to charm so many different Americans has almost certainly aided his return to grace, while also alienating a large swath of society that sees him as inauthentic.
WHY AREN’T THERE MORE REDEMPTION STORIES LIKE THIS AMONG WOMEN?
It’s not just because women aren’t given second chances. It’s because they are rarely able to reach those heights in the first place.
Many high-achieving people, regardless of gender, have an Icarus complex. The extreme qualities and the obsessive pursuit of success that drive their ascents can lead to their downfall. The discipline and pressure can lead to addictions, the opposite of control. Obviously, we saw that in Woods; just following his descent grew excruciating. But it fit the narrative.
Woods understood this. Entering rehab in 2010 after accusations of infidelity, sex addiction and substance abuse, he said: “I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled.”
In men, excessive qualities can be forgiven, even admired — when it works out at least. His trajectory is a reminder of who pays forever for their mistakes and whose transgressions can be set aside.
Part of the problem is that so few women even reach the athletic heights of Woods, let alone stay there. Yes, we have the extraordinary Serena Williams. But can you name another female athlete on the financial and cultural level as Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Tom Brady and their peers?
Of the few iconic women, sponsors and fans, to a certain degree, want them to be perfect — or at least quiet. Women’s moral behavior deeply influences our perception of their professional achievements.
Consider how swiftly the Olympic runner and nine-time N.C.A.A. champion Suzy Favor Hamilton was vilified after she was caught working as an escort while coping with mental illness. Nike immediately severed ties, as did many other groups associated with her. The athletic achievements on her Wikipedia page became subsumed by stories of prostitution.
“It was as if I must have murdered someone,” Favor Hamilton said recently. “Never a degree of ‘Well, perhaps something must be very much wrong.’”
For Hamilton, the attraction to vice fulfilled the same thing many elite athletes get from the rush of victory in sport. “It was the buzz I felt as an athlete,” she said. “I have a history of taking things to extremes.”
Most champions do!
Oksana Baiul won an Olympic gold medal in figure skating for her native Ukraine in 1994, and moved to Connecticut with millions of dollars, after having slept alone in an ice rink as an impoverished orphan. A few years later, she had been charged with a D.U.I. and gone through rehab for alcohol abuse. “She appears serious about trying to turn her life around and returning to respectability,” The Times reported in 1998, noting the 17 pounds she’d lost since the previous winter, “when she was drinking and overweight and barely able to land any jump.”
Spoiler: She didn’t return to competitive skating.
Two great female athletes did have major comebacks. But the “setbacks” were totally different. Monica Seles was victimized by a maniacal fan who stabbed her on the court. And Serena Williams is in the midst of comeback — after having a baby. Like Woods, each of these women had physical setbacks. But neither of them made mistakes.
Except Williams has surpassed her male peers and demonstrated the flip side of the extreme, confident and righteous qualities necessary to achieve success — she dared to get angry, and show it, when she opposed what she considered an unfair call at the United States Open last September. The public immediately chastised her. There was silence, and then a lot of Instagram posts about motherhood and her daughter.
No woman has the leeway to behave like Woods and get away with it; a black woman certainly does not. Just imagine the reaction if Serena Williams was caught cheating on her husband, Alexis Ohanian, with numerous men.
There are also practical ingredients of a comeback: It requires support, both popular and financial. Nike never abandoned Woods; analysts said his win generated more than $22 million in exposure for the company.
Women literally cannot afford to make the messy mistakes we see in the long arc of a lot of a storied male athlete’s career, and they rarely get the payoffs.
“I’m no Tiger Woods,” Hamilton told me. “There is so much money at stake with someone like him. So a company like Nike will do anything to protect him and his image.” She still had a relationship with Nike when reports of her escort work prompted the company to drop her. Now, she said, “I’m on an island trying to protect myself.”
Society rarely allows women to nurture those bold qualities that drive standout success. Instead, to get ahead, women either learn to stifle those instincts, or get punished for them. This muffles the traits that might lead to failure and inevitably also the qualities that lead to success.
To be sure, some men are being held accountable for their bad behavior these days. And Woods faced widespread public scorn after his philandering and reckless driving. But that evaporated last weekend when he was widely celebrated, after having been encouraged to pursue his comeback.
Shouldn’t everyone be able to recover from a fall from grace?
Or at least, shouldn’t we allow both men and women to get high enough to fall?
Armen Keteyian explain why Tiger Woods has become so beloved following so many missteps | THE HERD