As expected Tiger Woods closed out his 8th win at Torrey Pines in convincing fashion. While many columnists and golf pundits prefer to withhold judgement based on this one win, it is hard to deny the impact of winning the first event a player enters to start the year.
Clearly the mental game is there for Tiger as he pushed his lead to 8 strokes on the final day before safely coasting to the finish line. Some may examine Tiger's errant driving during the Monday round and say that nothing has changed and yet there he was on 18 with a tap in to clinch victory.
It brings to mind the epic collapse of Jean Van de Velde in 1999 where even after driving the ball the man managed to triple bogey what should have been the final hole of the tournament by compounding his mistakes. Tiger, on the other hand, appeared to shake off his consistently bad drives by the time he reached his second shot every time. To do this on the money making day of one's first tournament of the year takes a mental agility that few possess.
Would 2010 Tiger Woods have been able to make the same saves?
If Woods can keep this calm quietude of the mind during 2013 he is poised for a real breakout (re-breakout? comeback?) year. Jack Nicklaus at 37 finished with 3 wins and 15 top-10 finishes in 19 tournaments. It doesn't take too much imagination to see Tiger Woods surpassing that win total in his 37th year.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Why Tiger Woods will be No. 1 in the world by the Masters
The game of golf to the casual observer
may seem little more than a bunch of rich guys strolling around their
overly manicured lawns. Occasionally they stop, wiggle their sticks
too many times, smack a tiny white ball with varying degrees of
accuracy and continue on their way.
The truth is, for many golfers this
actually is reality. No amount of athletic experience or prowess can
prepare a person for the game of golf. There is not much advantage to
be gained by lifting weights, injecting steroids or even being born
with superior size and strength like all our other major past-times.
It's all mental.
Let us briefly examine the rise and
fall of Eldrick Tiger Woods.
Everyone that follows golf or really
sports in general remembers the meteoric rise of the prodigy child
star. He hit the ball farther than anyone, chipped and putted as well
as the rest of them and he NEVER missed in the clutch. If Tiger Woods
was leading when he donned the now infamous Sunday red the tournament
might as well have ended on Saturday.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving of 2009
when the bomb dropped that the fastidious and pure champion of the
links was no more than a womanizing egomaniac. Or rather he was
simply human. In the midst of a colossal media storm that followed
golf fans watched in awe while the mighty king of swing tumbled from
contention and then from the No. 1 spot on the money list and in the
world golf rankings.
Endorsements were stricken from the
record, a nasty divorce was finalized and Tiger began to fade from
golf's spotlight leaving a massive void at the top. Imagine if the NY
Yankees had suddenly disbanded when George Steinbrenner passed on.
Even the sport itself faltered.
Come 2012, in the finally settling dust
of celebrity Armageddon; golf, the world and Tiger began to move on.
Having re-hauled his game and lifestyle Woods seemed to have turned a
corner. It was a roller coaster year for the former No. 1 but he
calmly took it all in stride. After notching his third win of 2012 at
the AT&T National Tiger, in one of his more memorable press
conference moments, reminded the press exactly who they were dealing
with.
Maybe Paul Azinger was right when he
was told Golf World that
there might just be too much going on in Tiger's head. Not that
anyone could blame him for being caught up in mental turmoil but
maybe all Tiger Woods needed was to quiet his mind and let years of
muscle memory take over.
It remains to be seen whether Tiger Woods is
truly back on top but after opening the 2013 with a convincing
eighth victory at Torrey Pines who would really doubt it?
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