Tiger Woods: How the golfing legend gathered himself to a devastating effect

It's the coveted green jacket for Tiger Woods after winning the Masters.

 

Magnolia Lane is still reverberating with the deafening sound of super-excited patrons shouting out for Tiger as they witnessed what many pundits had predicted would never happen again: Tiger Woods winning the Masters Golf Championship again!

Millions all over the world were celebrating this feat in front of their TVs. Those on the dark side of the planet opted to do without sleep that night in anticipation of what promised to be the biggest sports spectacle this year. They were not disappointed.

This was the greatest sporting comeback in modern times, and can only be bettered by Ben Hogan’s return in 1950.

Ben and his wife were driving on Highway 80 in very foggy conditions when an oncoming Greyhound Bus trying to pass a truck crashed into Hogan’s car head-on. 
 

Nasty accident
Ever the gallant gentleman, Ben hurled his body across the passenger seat to protect his wife. That also saved his life as the steering column was rammed into the back of his seat.

The entire left side of Ben’s body was crushed. He sustained injuries to his internal organs, a double-fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collarbone, fractured left ankle, chipped ribs, near-fatal blood clots and damage to his left eye.

It was a miracle that he survived. But he was going to have difficulties walking again. His doctors warned he would never play golf, let alone compete at Tour level again. His golf career was over. But not so for The Hawk: Eleven months later he won the US Open.

Tiger’s come back is certainly one for the ages. He had not won a major in the past 11 years, a period during which he dropped to the nadir of his life. From Hero to Zero.

The fall of Tiger started with his losing his youthful golf swing. The former king of the fairways could not find the fairway with his driver. It became a joke for placing wagers and bets as punters predicted which side of the forest he would lose his tee shot. 
 

A ripped muscular young man
The indomitable Tiger had lost his mojo. As he matured, his body had morphed from one of a slim athletic boy to a ripped muscular young man. He had hit the gym hard and his body had bulked hence his legendary wrap around full swing was never going to work.

We see this happen with well-built athletes who start golf later in life. Their bodies simply can’t turn enough due to their massive left breast muscle obstructing the left bicep. The left shoulder is thus unable to slide under the chin, as the classic golf backswing requires. Their strong back muscles resist the body turn leading to a restricted backswing.

But his coach was insisting on Tiger working to regain his old form, instead of trying to retrofit a new swing to his body. Really good golfers know their swing; what works and what does not work.

Tiger needed a new coach, so he sacked Butch Harmon, the coach under whom he had won eight majors and 34 PGA events. The golfing world was horrified! How could he?

Tiger headhunted Hank Haney, a respected coach who agreed to go with Tiger’s desire for a new swing. This is the period when the buzz word “rebuilding one’s swing” came into vogue. With Haney, Tiger won six majors and 31 Tour events.

The master of the game lines up a putt.

Traumatised body

But there was a problem. The strain from this rigorous change had traumatised his body. His back and knees had suffered. He had to undergo knee and several back surgeries. At some point, Nike even designed a new shoe to help facilitate his balance and body turn.

But the damage was done. By the fourth round of the 2008 US Open, the last major he won before last month, his body was a mess. It didn’t help that his final score tied with Rocco Mediate’s and thus was condemned to play a full 18-hole strokeplay round the next day.

He won, but in a lot of pain, hence the famous quip that Tiger won that open on one leg. To me, that is the best round that displayed Tiger’s toughness, resilience and determination.

Unfortunately, that win would cost him big time: eleven years. The damage to his body was so worse that it appeared and he needed more surgeries. Tiger, impatient with the slow healing process, kept making the same mistake of returning to competition before full healing. He just could not stand missing the Majors, especially the Masters.

That led to humiliation when he had to bail out mid-round on several occasions. He also became irritable and unable to work with his coach Hank Haney. Haney ditched Tiger. He would later write a book about Tiger, “The Big Miss”, in which he gives a pretty good analysis of Tiger’s psyche.

Loud-mouthed coach

Losing Haney was a big blow to Tiger. It didn’t help that his loudmouthed former coach, Butch Harmon, was taunting him by bragging to all and sundry that it was only him who could bring Tiger back.

Tiger’s next coach, Sean Foley only managed eight PGAs and no major in five years. Thereafter, Chris Como came in with whom success was nil in three years.

The human mind abhors boredom and inactivity. Frustrated and unable to play or compete, Tiger was inevitably drawn to, shall we say, other activities and distractions?

It all came crashing down one evening in November 2009, when he stupidly engaging in sexting with one of his girlfriends while at home, not realising that his wife was monitoring. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned: she went at him with the nearest available weapon: a golf club.

As Tiger hightailed from her, he crashed his SUV and got knocked out cold. With the secret of his philandering out of the bag, former girlfriends emerged from the woodwork. It would later turn out, he had at least 19 girlfriends, one for every hole, as one journalist quipped.

That incident eventually led to a divorce that cost him a reported $100 million. Tiger would later be arrested for driving under the influence of drugs and undergo rehabilitation for sex addiction.

Tiger Woods after winning the 2019 Masters.

Sponsors

Everybody loves and wants to identify with a winner, but when the hero falls, he is alone. Tiger’s sponsors terminated their contracts. Such is modern marketing. Their sports heroes must remain superhuman, perfect and clean, sponsors fearing the hit on their brands should they act otherwise.

You saw how fast Disney ditched the Hanna Montana Character after Miley Cyrus’s declared she was no longer the innocent Daddy’s girl by twerking on Justin Timberlake on stage.

Tiger’s Mea Culpa in front of the entire sports press was humbling and embarrassing, as he tried to salvage his brand.

Golfers and fans who joined the golf world after 2008 t have been wondering what the fuss about Tiger Woods was, never having seen him in top action. Well, you got a glimpse of that last month. But believe me, not the best of Tiger.

During his reign, other golfers knew they were fighting for the second position if Tiger was in the field. He was so dominant that courses were Tiger-proofed to tame him. Any golfer going into a final round with a lead less than six shots knew he was within reach of a charging Tiger.

To me, that was the most entertaining scenario on Sunday: Tiger charging from behind on strokes, but ahead on the course. This was exactly what worked out at the 2009 Masters.

Rains and golf

The final day is always played in pairs. Tiger would be paired with Brooks Koepka, and they would play ahead of Francesco Molinari and Tony Finau who were in the last pairing. The challenge for Tiger was to post a high score that Molinari, who was starting one stroke ahead, would not catch.

Unfortunately, Augusta denied us that opportunity. Citing the expected rains, they decided to send out the players in threes and to use both tee number one and ten for starting.

This was very strange because rain is not anything new in golf, and would never have happened in a USGA or USPGA managed competition.

The solution is either to extend play to Monday for those who do not finish or declare scores after the third round as final. But at the Masters, Augusta makes the rules and nobody dares object. Augusta runs a tight ship.

Nobody knows this better than the legendary incisive CBS golf commentator, former 2-time Major winner Johnny Miller, who got kicked out of Masters commentary for his bikini wax comment. Gary McCord would suffer the same fate later.

There was another marketing reason for sending players in threes: Tiger would be in the final group, exactly what Augusta desired and perfect for TV ratings. As it would turn out, CBS earned a 7.7 rating, the highest overnight rating for a morning golf broadcast in 34 years.

Augusta loves Tiger

And why not make such a change? Augusta loves Tiger, and Tiger loves Augusta. From the time he joined the tour he had declared that his focus and desire was the Masters.

We saw Augusta bend the rules once when Tiger missed the cut by one stroke: they shifted the cut line so he could play the weekend.

It’s all about business, as they say, and the dying golf game and industry desperately needs visibility. Were Tiger to win, the entire golf industry would gain a massive boost.

Sounds good, but not so for overnight leader Molinari. He plays a level-head cool no error, no drama game, without much excitement as we saw when he won the British Open and Race to Dubai last year.

Tiger, on the other hand, feeds off the crowd’s excitement. Being paired with Tiger is generally a disaster to the other golfer. Fans don’t see you. If Tiger tees off first, fans start walking before the other golfers do.

It can be disheartening. For all intent and purposes, this round of golf, and the competition was over before it started. Molinari was finished.  

Crowd pressure

We saw Molinari start off nervously, making no advances on his scores in the front nine. The competition had changed from strokeplay to matchplay. Tiger knew all he had to do was wait for his playing companions to succumb to crowd pressure and the Tiger Mystique and make mistakes.

The darling of the crowds at work.

We saw that at the season-ending Fedex Cup Tour Championship last year in Atlanta Georgia. Few remember who the Fedex Cup, but what a spectacle as Tiger secured his first win since 2013.

Once again, infamous Amen Corner, would decide the Masters winner. Hole 12 to be precise. The same hole where Jordan Spieth rinsed two balls in Rae’s creek and blew his chances for a second green jacket.

Finau and Molinari’s golf balls spun back into Rae’s creek. Tiger played safe, going for the fat part of the green, over the bunker for safety, just in case his ball spun excessively.

The roar from the crowd when Tiger made par was deafening. The rest is history: after a tumultuous, frustrating and painful 11 years, Tiger won his 15th Major.

How did Tiger achieve this feat? He has honed a new swing that matches his rehabilitated body. Apparently, his treatment included fusing some vertebrae hence he can only make a limited turn, so flares his left foot very wide to followthrough. In the past he flared the right foot to draw the ball.

His new swing turns the momentum equation upside down by emphasizing delivery of more weight behind the ball not just extreme speed. Think of the Big Easy, or Vijay Singh.

Blowing past Sam Sneads

The swing finish is also abbreviated for accuracy. It’s called the Longevity swing and would be suitable for a lot of our seniors. I am dishing out free pearls here!  Remember Jacob Okello’s opening drive at the 2009 Kenya Open?

With Tiger t 81 PGA Tour wins, he is certain to blow past Sam Sneads all-time 82 wins records. The big question is, can Tiger sustain this form and revive his long-stated goal of breaking Jack Nicklaus’s 18 Majors record? He is at 15.

The 2019 US Open is at Pebble Beach, where he won by a record-setting fifteen strokes in 2000, the most dominating victory in any Major.

Bethpage Black, where Tiger won the US Open in 2002, and was the only one who finished under par, hosts the PGA Championship this year.

With the stripped one back on the prowl, the golf Majors promise an exciting hunting ground. Enjoy your golf; keep it in the short grass.

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