Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Can Tiger get his mojo back?
Has Woods lost his focus?
The British Open, the third major golf championship of the season, starts today. While sports stories tout such golfers as Justin Rose and Steve Stricker as the potential winner, there really is only one golfer to watch. And that is Tiger Woods, arguably the greatest (and richest) golfer of his generation or any other.
Can Woods pull it off? As anyone who has ever swung a club can attest, golf is a game of the mind. Many studies have shown how psychological preparation is as significant as shot-making skills. Mental stress on a golf course can have a devastating effect on a player's score. At the moment, there is probably no golfer on the planet dealing with more personal stress than Tiger Woods.
As is well known, Woods is caught up in an adulterous scandal completely of his own making. He is alleged to have had affairs with at least a dozen women. Undoubtedly, he is about to face a messy and expensive divorce from his wife Elin, the mother of his two young children.
Since his return to the golf course for this year's Master's Tournament, Woods has played mediocre at best and at times downright terrible. He claims his late start to the season is responsible, but you have to wonder whether he will ever regain the remarkable form that has enabled him to win 14 majors.
The British bookies think so. Despite his poor performance of late, London odds-makers list him as a 6-1 favourite to win the Open. He also insists that he is mentally prepared, that his turbulent private life will not "impact" his play, and that he is "just trying to become a better person." But he is not an automaton, and he still becomes angry with himself when he blows a shot. He still throws his clubs and swears under his breath.
Media saturation and celebrity culture almost make us think that we know the stars and sports heroes we read about and watch on television.
In June 2008, I was fortunate to attend the U.S. Golf Open in San Diego with my son Alexander. On the third day we watched in awe as Tiger strode down the 17th fairway like Moses parting the Red Sea. In a vast semi-circle around him, but at a respectable distance, were at least 150 journalists with Woods, hobbling on a bad knee, in the middle. His second shot landed in the rough directly across from where we were standing.
Watching Tiger and the hoopla surrounding him is one of the great sights in sports. He stood awkwardly beside his ball and with a wedge chipped it out of the rough as hundreds of cameras clicked. The ball bounced once on the green and dropped straight into the hole. The crowd, my son and I included, went wild. Two days later, in a playoff round, he won the tournament.
Recently, Vanity Fair magazine documented Tiger's sordid affairs. Reading the salacious details, the tales of secret rendezvous with strippers and porn stars, his insatiable sexual appetite, and the adolescent text messages, it is difficult to relate this to the image of the golfer I have seen play.
Let me be clear: Tiger is not deserving of sympathy or understanding for his actions off the course. And he would be the first to admit that. He has screwed up his life and lost his aura and place as one of the most respected athletes in the world. But my hunch is that he will bounce back, perhaps not this weekend to win the British Open, but in the near future.
No one can succeed as he has in sport without possessing an enormous capacity for mental discipline. They probably won't name a community centre after Woods any time soon. But like it or not, the record shows -- to list only a few examples, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Ben Roethlisberger and Martin Brodeur -- that sports superstardom trumps moral transgressions every time.
Winnipeg historian and writer Allan Levine enjoys watching golf more than playing it.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 15, 2010 A10
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