The Beauty of Tiger Losing
I say this somewhat *tongue in cheek* because I mean no disrespect for Mr. Woods and his many amazing golfing accomplishments but the beauty of Tiger losing IS the beauty of sport itself.
Tiger 2 up going into the last round of a major is/was a forgone conclusion for a win. After all, he has done it every single time he has been in the lead. So why watch? We could do something else rather than watch the boob tube and then pick up the next mornings newspaper with the headlines “Tiger Captures Number 15″
But, as we all know, that did not happen. Y.E. Yang (the 110th ranked golfer in the world) stuck like crazy glue to Tiger, played some downright exceptional golf and ended up doing the “impossible” by prevailing over world number 1 Tiger Woods and winning his first major championship.
Now the beauty of sport is really the unpredictability of it. In other sports: The Patriots going 19-0 and losing in the Superbowl, The US hockey team beats the USSR in the 1980 Olympics, Boxer Buster Douglas knocks out Mike Tyson in 1990, The 1969 Miracle Mets and so many more.
In golf: Jack Fleck Beats Ben Hogan in the 1955 US Open, Jack Nicklaus wins the Masters at age 46, John Daly comes from nowhere to win the 1991 PGA Championship, Y.E. Yang beats Tiger in 2009 PGA.
Along with the unpredictability goes the hope of the regular guy beating the heroic champ. It feels “real” to us. It doesn’t always happen, like Rocco almost slaying the invincible Tiger at last years US Open or Tom Watson (2009) almost winning the British Open or Greg Norman’s quest for the same Claret Jug in 2008.
But sports gives us all the feeling at times that we (you and I) CAN do amazing things in our lives, that we can overcome adversity, that we can reveal our own greatness, that we can prevail and win. That we can do what YE Yang did. It gives us hope.
That’s why Tiger losing is a good thing. It puts sport above the individual. The “game” is bigger than all of us and we know we can never win all the time. Tiger has been proving us wrong every time. Until yesterday. When the game of golf became bigger than Tiger himself.
Related posts:
- Asia Has It’s Own Francis Oiumet Now
- Woods and Oosthuizen-The two Biggest Surprises of the British Open
- Tiger – Forgive or Condemn?
- Tiger Woods – Golfer for All Seasons
- Could It Be That Tiger Smells Blood In The Water
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[...] my hat off to Doug for a great piece on Monday called The Beauty of Tiger Losing. Read it below if you haven’t already. It says more about sports and what attracts us as [...]