Tim-bob wrote:
So what's the deal with Tiger Woods then? I'm not a golf fan, so from the outside it just looks like he fucked up his marriage and had some injury issues? So why would that make him turn to complete shit? Can he not be arsed anymore or something?
It's a combination of things. He was well ahead of the game when he burst onto the scene in '97. He practised more hours a day, trained like he was a world class athlete and so physically and technically he was completely unique in the world of golf. As unique as Thierry Henry would have been if you transported him into football in the 1950s. He completely dominated for over a decade - the aura that grew around him meant he only had to have a sniff on the final day of a major and he'd probably have his rivals in such a state that he was almost guaranteed to be the victor.
Then he got his first bad injury in 2008. He had cartilage in his knee removed, made the big mistake of rushing himself back against medical advice to get ready for the US Open; he won the tournament, but had to do it with a torn ACL and a double stress fracture of his tibula - I shit you not, that's how astonishing the man is. He was literally bent over double after every shot in pain and still beat all of the best golfers in the world in the biggest/most brutal golf tournament in the world.
He announced straight after that he'd miss the rest of the season to have surgery on his knee, came back, started to get into his groove and then all the stuff about his private life exploded. He had to admit to a lot of wrong doing and humiliate himself in press conferences apologising to journalists and fellow pros that revered him as one of the greatest sportsman of all time, almost as superhuman, and treating him as such in interviews and articles they wrote about him. Overnight he became just a man, a man that wasn't blessed or special - he lost that aura.
He took a while off to sort his life out, came back and did okay, but started getting injuries that put him out for a month here or a month there, and when he finally got a good run with injuries, in 2013, he got himself back to number one in the world, winning some big tournaments one after the other. Of course, he got another injury, which meant he did alright in the majors that year, but wasn't the Tiger of old. He has since had severe back problems that have resulted in surgery and put him out for lengthy periods of time. He's now at a point where he's trying to find a way to successfully swing a club with his back and knee not what they were (along with a host of other war wounds). He hasn't lost the plot or given up, it just takes time to remodel your game and then get back into the groove of competing again.
The truth is all these young bucks have caught him up. He revolutionised golf to such an extent that everybody copied him. Now they're all largely super athletes, that train from 5 years old with a variation on Tiger's swing, do yoga, don't drink alcohol and eat plenty of quinoa! There's not enough hours in the day for Tiger to make up the ground they've gained on him in the last 7 years or so - he's at a different stage of his life to the likes of McIlroy and Spieth, he has kids and other responsibilities - and, most importantly, he's lost that fear factor, they all think they can beat him, even when he's playing well. If you dont follow golf it's impossible to convey how Tiger was regarded at his peak. It was as if he was an alien or a demigod - it was Tiger and the rest - such were the scale of his achievements.
No one around today is even half the golfer, or sportsman, that he is. I would be over the moon if he could come back to a truly competitive level again. Tiger Woods 1997-2008 was the best sportman I've ever seen, so I wouldn't bet against him getting back up there again. He'll figure it out and find a swing that works, but whether he'll ever be able to hold up to the pressure of a Sunday at a Major again and walk away victorious, I'm not so sure.
Sorry for the length on a post about golf! I know no one gives a shit!
