On Thursday, around 9:35 in the morning, a lot of men in America are going to get a little teary-eyed. It’s not that we are going to receive bad news, and we won’t be watching some video about a sick old dog’s last day with its owner making the rounds on social media. That is the time on Thursday when Tiger Woods will be teeing off on the first hole of The Masters.
We are going to get a little choked up because just 14-months ago, Tiger was lying in a Los Angeles hospital bed following a car crash that caused extreme injuries to his right leg. The word was at the time, that there was at least a 50-50 chance that it would have to be amputated. Now, just more than a year later, one of the greatest athletes of our generation is going to walk up to the tee box and play in the most prestigious tournament in the sport that he once dominated. And it will be hard to hold back the emotions.
I am not a Tiger Woods super-fan. For most of his career, I’ve been rooting for the guys trying to someone beat him in the major tournaments. My guy–Phil Mickelson–would have a bunch more titles to his credit, if Tiger hadn’t been consistently beating him. There is an entire generation of players that when being considered for the Golf Hall of Fame have their career accomplishments qualified as coming in “The Tiger Era”–so that wins in those years somehow count more than the wins accumulated by golfers that didn’t go head-to-head with Woods. And let’s face it, he hasn’t been the greatest role model off the course.
But in Tiger we see the flawed greatness that we all strive to achieve ourselves. There is still a segment of the American population that sees doing better than others as an honorable goal. That everyone doesn’t have to win–and that it’s okay if one person seems to win all the time. And Tiger was notorious for being stand-offish, for not letting his competitors get too close to him, because on Sunday–when the title was on the line–he didn’t give a rat’s behind about crushing your hopes and dreams. You want to beat me? Play better.
Besides, who doesn’t love a great comeback story? You could argue this is Tiger’s fourth “comeback”. The man was seen as invincible until a November night in 2009 when he now-ex-wife decided she’d had enough of his extra-marital affairs and reportedly attacked him with a golf club in the moments before he crashed his car (the first time). Suddenly, the impenetrability of Tiger’s facade was breached. There was an embarrassing, awkward press conference and a high-profile divorce. But Tiger “came back” from that to continue to win golf tournaments at a very high rate.
Then came the debilitating injuries in his back and knees that literally had him falling to the ground in agonizing pain after swinging. But he found a way to come back from that to win again. And then came the second car crash–where Tiger was found basically passed out behind the wheel of his vehicle near his home with a mix of painkillers and sleeping pills in his system. But, there he was a few years later winning the Tour Championship with the fans pouring out onto the fairway to greet him on 18. And that was followed by an improbable fifth win at The Masters that got a lot of men deep into their feelings again.
We have seen Tiger play golf just once since the third car crash. He and his son, Charlie, teamed up for a televised father-son tournament in Orlando just before Christmas–which saw record TV veiewership–eclipsing the previous all-time audience when Tiger and Charlie played in the event the first time in 2020.
But this will be different. Tiger won’t be riding in a cart to ease the strain on his surgically-repaired leg. He won’t be competing in what we call a “hit and giggle” atmosphere with no real pressure to perform and where everyone goes home with some cash. Instead, he will be attempting to hike the hills and valleys of the most-undulating course players face each year–for four straight days–against the best in the world all giving their absolute best to win the most-coveted prize in the sport. And if somehow, Tiger–in his famous Sunday red shirt and black pants–is in the mix to win in the final round, millions that would otherwise be working on the yard or catching up on their Facebook cat videos will be flocking to their TV’s or streaming devices to tune in. Better have the Kleenex ready.
