Tiger Woods – Golfer for All Seasons

Posted by John

August 10, 2010

Tiger Woods has been the best golfer in the world for at least a decade. I have rooted for him over the years even though I typically pull for the underdog. I wasn’t so much rooting for Tiger’s success as for someone to show us that golf can be mastered. When you win 6 out of the 11 tournaments you play and win the US Open with a broken leg it can sure look like you’ve slayed the beast.

Time and time again, golf has demonstrated that no one, not even Tiger Woods, beats the game. Make two birdies in a row and then – surprise – you double bogey. Why, because your mind succumbs to golf’s sirens. Tiger is now the poster child for golf’s toughest lesson – defining self worth by a golf score is a sure way to play tense and shoot terrible scores in the process. This cycle can become self-perpetuating and has caused many a golfer to hang up the clubs for good.

With every tournament it’s clearer that Tiger’s problems are in his mind and not with his body. As Bobby Jones once said, ‘competitive golf is is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course…the space between your ears’. Nowhere is that more apparent now than with Tiger Woods. If Tiger can once again find his form and is willing to share with the rest of the world what happened, perhaps he’ll help all of us make peace with the game.

For taking such a long break at the beginning of the season, Tiger did well at the Masters. From that point on he has basically gotten worse the more he plays. Tiger’s once invincible putting stroke now seems as lost as his drive. It’s a result of tension and tension is mental. A golf swing or stroke can survive a lot of faults but it can’t survive tension. Ask Dustin Johnson about that one.

Tiger has been defined by golf. He only added to that in any significant way when he became a husband and then a father. Now it’s clear that he failed miserably on the last two accounts. How could he not now doubt his golfing ability. It’s possible that he feels he should be punished for what he did, so letting the golfing gods tear him down may be his way of healing. Let the psychologists debate that one. Bottom line – Tiger is a bundle of tension on the course, the kind of tension that can make you miss a 3 foot putt and not even touch the hole.

Tiger’s game is not going to improve until he rights the mental ship. Perhaps complete failure this year will allow him to remake and rebuild his golfing psyche. Let us amateurs learn something from Tiger’s demise. Golf is a game we play hopefully for enjoyment, fun and camaraderie. Shooting a 70 or a 100 doesn’t make us better or worse people. If we let golf be what we do and not who we are, we might just find more enjoyment in the game. And that’s really what it’s about for those of us who don’t have to earn a living playing competitively.

My best golf rounds have ALWAYS been when I was paying no attention to score. Once I realize I might be having a season best round it all goes to hell in a handbasket. In some ways that’s golf’s enduring mystery and charm. A round of golf is not so much something you do as something you watch unfold.