Woods’ remarkable comeback
Tiger’s Masters victory at Augusta National has turned the world of golf upside down – again
TIGER Woods’ triumph at the Masters last Sunday not only got the golf industry buzzing, but set the world sport in a spin – labouring to digest what just took place and just how he managed it.
This was Woods’ 15th Major championship title and it came no less than 11 years after his last - the 2008 US Open. It also followed in the wake of multiple back surgeries, a sex scandal that ruined his marriage, devastated his marketable image and precipitated such poor form that countless folks gave him no chance of ever again winning another of golf ’s Grand
Slam events.
Well Woods made everything right again with his win on 13-under 275 that left world number one Dustin Johnson, impressive Xander Schauffele and three-time major winner Brooks Koepka a shot back and in second place.
The victory moved Woods into the top-10 for the first time in a long time and underscored just how far he had come after tumbling beyond the top 1,000 players in the modern game.
But if the truth be told, there were signs that Woods was again on his way to the very top of his sport. Yes, he attempted several comebacks before that were followed by failure and dejection, borne of recurring injures. But this time things were different and they stayed different.
In the last two Majors of last year he contended in both before finishing in a tie for sixth place at the British Open and then runner-up at the US PGA Championship.
For some – and there were only a few – things really came to a head and the gauntlet finally thrown down, when he captured his 80th PGA
Tour title at the seasonending Tour Championship. But even then, Woods had his doubters – many of them.
Today they are silenced. Silenced by the resilience of a man whose comeback from the gutter has been likened to those who have rewritten the history books, altered the trajectories of their disciplines and inspired millions outside of sport to become better people. Woods’ comeback was unsurprisingly spoken of in the same breath this week as the re-emergence of world heavyweight champion Mohammad Ali after his expulsion from boxing because of his beliefs, Monica Seles who came back from a knife attack to win a Grand Slam again, and a few others from down the years.
It was interesting to note that 25-year-old Schauffele said afterwards that he watched Woods in person as a 14-year-old and was there when Tiger made the crucial birdie putt on the last hole in regulation to force a playoff with Rocco Mediate in the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego.
Schauffele, like the rest of the world, also saw Woods go through what he went through before that historic victory on the 18th green at Augusta National golf Club in Atlanta.
Woods has been largely credited with changing the fortunes of golf after he broke on to the big time with his first Major in 1997 – at the Masters.
And his coming back as he did over last half-a-year and a bit, culminating with golf’s most famous win in the past two decades last week, will have been good to golf as a whole, more so at a time when the sport could have done with a shot in the arm.
A rather timely invention by Mr Woods, one would have to say.
Woods’ comeback from the gutter has been likened to those who have rewritten the history books and altered the trajectories of their disciplines