@TheSportsBros We are in the midst of one of the greatest “whodunits” in the history of sports. A sports mystery of the likes that not even Agatha Christie could have thought of. What has happened to the once dominant Tiger Woods? Tiger Woods rose to the top of his profession like he was shot out of a canon. He dominated all of his competition. Who could forget how he basically lapped the field at the 97 Masters, or how his so called closest rival Phil Mickelson would shrivel up anytime he was near the great Tiger. With the huge success came a marketing campaign of historic proportions, Tiger Woods was everywhere. He became one of the most powerful athletes in the history of sports, until that fateful driveway incident with then wife Elin.
Ever since that day we may have seen the most meteoric fall from grace sports has ever produced. First came the very expensive and humiliating public divorce, the sex scandals, sponsers fled from him almost as quickly as they came, he brought in a new swing coach and got rid of his long-time caddy and good friend. The Tiger empire was crumbling before our very eyes.
So what happened? When Tiger was good, there was no one better, ever. He has had the most successful career ever by the age of 35 and it is not even close. He has won 95 tournaments, 71 of those on the PGA Tour, including the 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2005 Masters Tournaments, 1999, 2000, 2006 and 2007 PGA Championships, 2000, 2002, and 2008 U.S. Open Championships, and 2000, 2005 and 2006 Open Championships. MC Hammer could’nt touch that resume. So if he was so good, then how is it that he is so bad now? Tiger missed the cut at last week’s PGA tournament and the notion of him surpassing Jack Nicklaus record 18 Major Championships, something that was once a given is now being seriously debated.
You might wonder how anyone could believe that he will still break the all-time majors record after playing the worst year of golf in his illustrious career and recently shooting his worst round at a major in nearly a decade. It’s all coming apart now or so it seems for Tiger. He is no longer feared by his competitors, he looks like a beaten man, defeated, like a boxer way past his prime who still believes he has that one great fight left in him. This story is going to end in one of only two ways, either we are witnessing the single greatest collapse of an athlete the likes of which we may never see again, or Tiger will make some sort of triumphant return to glory.
Personally I am all out of answers, I mean once I learned how to ride a bike that was it, I never forgot, so are we to believe that the man groomed to be the greatest player ever who was well on his way there has lost his mojo just because his sexcapades got exposed to the world? Maybe he’s just in a slump, after all Tiger has won 14 Majors in his 15 year career. He needs only four more to tie Jack and he is just 35 years old. Hale Irwin won the 1990 PGA Championship at 45. Julius Boros won the PGA Championship at 48. Jack Nicklaus won his last major at 46. Tiger still has a whole lot of time to right the ship, but he needs to get back to the basics and focus. If only golf had a minor league system like baseball where he could go back and work on the little things that once made him great. It is sad what we are seeing right now, no one appears to have any insight into how this will all pan out.
This much we do know, Tiger is a serious competitor who hates to lose. He is cut from a different cloth, eccentric even, like the greats before him guys like Michael Jordan and Abdul Jabbar, driven by that obsession to win. Will he shatter the Golden Bear’s record like he once appeared destined to do or does he go down in history without a whimper as the greatest “lost it all” story sports has ever seen. History will be the judge of that, as for now the clock is ticking and Tiger has some serious soul searching to do.
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