Tiger Woods reveled in the media fanfare that occasioned his return to the PGA tour. In fact, he waxed even more triumphal during his pre-tournament press conference last week than Tom Brady did during his post-Super Bowl press conference this week … after winning the Super Bowl!
Specifically, Tiger regaled reporters not only about feeling great but also about playing better than he has in 15 years.
Except that he then proceeded to play the worst opening rounds of his career, and missed the cut. More to the point, as he slinked away in dismay, Tiger admitted that his game fell apart but that his back held up just fine.
Now comes this:
For the third time in his past nine tournaments, Tiger Woods has withdrawn with a back injury…
Woods, who started his round on the back nine, bogeyed two of his first three holes, again showing signs of the short-game woes that plagued him last week when he missed the cut at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
(ESPN, February 6, 2015)
Except that this is the sixth time in his career Tiger has withdrawn from a tournament; and it’s telling that all six withdrawals came after that infamous domestic dispute in November 2009. After all, the back he’s blaming for his premature withdrawals is the same back that, before then, had held up for thirteen years, during which time he not only won more tournaments than any other player on the tour, but had more extramarital affairs than any other husband on the planet to boot.
I just hope he takes time out from his counseling (marriage and psychological) to practice. That way, whenever he returns, there will be more public interest in his victories on the tour than in his conquests in the bedroom.
Fans will readily forgive him of course. But winning tournaments in his inimitable fashion is the only way to eradicate bacchanalian images of his private life from public consciousness – even if not from the tabloids.
(“Tiger Escapes to Safe Haven,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 14, 2009)
Theories abound about why Tiger can’t find his game. Before he took his first swing last week, I pooh-poohed his media triumphalism – in “Tiger’s Back, But He’s Brown, Not Black?!” January 29, 2015 – by noting that he needs to find himself before he can find his game.
But, as my quote above from “Tiger Escapes…” indicates, I’ve been advancing this theory since day one of his fall from grace … and from the PGA leaderboard. In fact, here is an excerpt from “Tiger, Tiger, Losing Fight,” August 15, 2011, which explains everything, including why Tiger is just using his back to save his face.
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It is impossible to resist engaging in pop psychology to explain why he can’t even buy a win these days. Apropos of this, I cannot help remarking on how delusional Tiger sounded on Friday after what had to have been the most humiliating performance of his professional career:
It’s a step back in the sense I didn’t make the cut but a giant leap forward in the sense that I played two straight weeks healthy.
(BBC Sport, August 12, 2011)
A giant leap forward? Hell, if merely staying healthy, physically, for two straight weeks is a giant leap forward, then actually winning another major might take a miracle…
But it’s plainly disingenuous for Tiger to suggest that chronic injuries have prevented him from winning. For this is belied by the fact that he not only seemed just fine throughout his winless 2010, but actually won his ‘last’ Major, the 2008 U.S. Open, while in obvious pain caused by a knee injury…
Frankly, one does not have to be a trained psychologist to diagnose that Tiger’s problems are more mental than physical. Because it’s self-evident that the public humiliation he endured following that domestic incident, which exposed his Charlie Sheen-like penchant for prostitutes, sapped him of the self-esteem and confidence that not only fueled his game, but instilled self-defeating fear in other players.
Unsurprisingly, the media have focused on the fact that he lost his wife and a half billion dollars in divorce payments and commercial endorsements. It’s arguable, though, that an even greater loss was the mental strength that gave him that invincible swagger, but which depended so much on reverence from fans and fellow players alike…
Furthermore, that a physically fit Tiger announced after missing the cut that he won’t play another tournament until November is testament to how mentally vulnerable he has become. Indeed, one can be forgiven for thinking that he’d rather nurse his wounded pride than risk another ignominious cut.
Unfortunately, this avoidance strategy will only make his performance anxiety more acute. And, given his now notorious sexcapades, how’s that for irony of ironies…?
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Enough said?
In fact, unless Tiger wins another major, I shall have nothing further to say about him. In the meantime, I fear we are witnessing the biggest career meltdown/choke in the history of professional sports; soon his poor play will make him look more pathetic than sympathetic. And God help Tiger when his poor play begins evoking more mockery than sympathy.
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