In case you haven't read (or heard) this: It's only the last paragraph that addresses the Tiger headset on winning. But it has some other very interesting points too.
The astonishing Woods is the daddy of them all
When Tiger Woods claimed the PGA Championship trophy, he improved to 13-0 when leading a major after three rounds. When Tiger Woods claimed the PGA Championship trophy, he improved to 13-0 when leading a major after three rounds. (CHARLIE RIEDEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist | August 14, 2007
Don't start with the "golf is not a sport" argument, because I don't want to hear it. Semantics, that's all it is.
"Sport," "game," "activity." Whatever. It really doesn't matter to me. Golf happens to be a pursuit beloved by millions the world over who know it to be fiendishly difficult and fascinating. In ways most other sports are not. Many have amused themselves by citing Mark Twain's famous declaration that golf is "a good walk spoiled," and if that's all golf is to them, fine.
We all have our druthers. To me, no lifetime could ever be long enough to warrant devoting so much as five seconds to fishing, but I fully realize there are millions of my fellow Americans who dream of spending the rest of their lives in pursuit of a trout or marlin, and I can respect that. Just don't expect me to tag along.
So for the sake of this argument I am calling Tiger Woods an athlete, and not just any athlete but the greatest athlete of our time. And by the time he's done, he may very well be up for consideration as the greatest American athlete of any time.
I fear that we are becoming numbed to Tiger's astonishing greatness. Tiger Woods is so surpassingly great at what he does that he runs the risk of making the exceedingly difficult seem boringly routine. He has set the highest performance bar of any athlete we ever have known.
I hardly know where to start, but let's commence with this: Since July 23, 2006, when he teed it up at the British Open, Tiger Woods has competed in 19 fully-staffed golf tournaments, not including his own Target World Challenges. He has won 11.
No one wins 11 of 19 golf tournaments, three of them majors. Yes, I know all about Byron Nelson's 11 straight in 1945, but we are talking about non-war, all-comers, modern golf when there never have been so many accomplished players as there are now.
As I said, no one can be expected to win 11 of 19 professional golf tournaments. There are far too many good golfers and far too many truly challenging courses for that to happen. No one has a game that sound, that diverse, that unshakeable. No one can handle every set of circumstances, from weather to a ridiculously hot foe to bad biorhythms. No one but Tiger, of course.
Winning a PGA Tour event is an enormous accomplishment. With the purses at their current level, the incentive for many isn't even all that strong. A man can make a very handsome living simply making most cuts and bagging an occasional top 10. Did you hear Boo Weekley the other day? The affable rube from the Florida panhandle says he wants nothing more from his career than to make enough money during a 10- or 12-year period to be able to go back home and go after those big-mouth bass. Period.
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We can only imagine what Tiger Woods thought when he heard or read that. Not playing to win? This is a completely unimaginable concept for Tiger. In fact, he addressed the idea in depth before the PGA Championship when he smirked that he was present for one reason, and it wasn't to "work on my farmer tan." The only reason to compete, he said, is to win. Otherwise, what's the point?
... he thinks in secrete and it comes to past, environment is but his looking glass -
"As A Man Thinketh"