Tiger’s redemption
Tiger Woods just made golf great again. When Woods walked off Augusta’s 18th green having won back the title at the age of 43, the players lined up to touch the hem of his garment. Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson, Xander Schauffele, Brooks Koepka, Ian Poulter and Bernhard Langer stood in line like cupbearers to the god. This was immortality.
And funnily enough, although immortality climaxed in a cheer that shook the tall pines of Georgia to their roots, it came into view with a shuffle. Woods, the greatest golfer to have played the game, in his own words plodded along. He didn’t rip the heart out of his opponents. Tiger smothered them. He played the golf of an accountant, and let the others just tear themselves apart.
Maybe this is the way his world starts again. Not with a bang, but a simper. Tiger had to return with humility. It could have happened nine months ago at Carnoustie, but it somehow had to be here, at Augusta, where it all started with his first major in 1997. Then in 2006 Woods could not win his fifth green jacket for his dying father. That was the defeat that hurt most in his career. Thirteen long, dark years later, he finally won that fifth jacket and it was for himself.
The victory was also for us. Woods needed help. Most of all he needed the help of the crowd, who have forgiven him and let him back into their hearts. Ten years ago a man called John Ziegler was so disgusted with Tiger that he closed down his website dedicated to the First Church of Tiger Woods. And when Woods said at a press conference before the 2010 US Open that his travails were none of my goddamn business, Ziegler popped up in the crowd by the ninth green and heckled Tiger, shouting, ‘‘hey Tiger, it is our business, you made it our business’’.
Tiger three-putted that green. His life was turning into a threeputt.
Woods made comebacks, but they ranged from semirespectable to pitiful. There was a time when even Tiger’s chipping fell apart, his hands shaking from the torment. The Fall of Tiger Woods plunged a venerated new American hero from the top of the world down into the filthy brackish waters of despair.
Tiger’s wife left him and took the children. He was a risible sex addict with his tailored golf pants down around his ankles. He became hooked on painkillers and sleeping pills and was found by the side of the road, his bloated face slumped on the wheel. His disintegrating back brought him to his knees, and he crawled and reached out for help like a toddler.
And now we are ready to help Tiger to his feet again, because he has shown humility. It was always there. At the 2002 Muirfield Open, when Tiger was stripped bare by the storm like an American Lear, he raised his hands in smiling self-mockery when he finally found a birdie on the 17th hole. And then he told his friend Mark O’Meara that he had a game plan for the next day. It was to get back to even par for the tournament. Tiger shot 65 on the Sunday.
Woods is now back in red figures. His kids were there at Augusta to see dad win a major and little Charlie wore a red shirt like his pop. Even Ziegler has forgiven the redeemed good news Tiger. When Bubba Watson won his first green jacket he said, ‘‘I never got this far in my dreams’’.
I am not sure Woods, who
dreamed as big as anyone, ever got as far as he did on this American Palm Sunday. Tiger’s joy was unconfined.
His old coach Butch Harmon said: ‘‘I’ve never seen him show emotion like that. At any time, anywhere, any time in his life. He was humbled by his own mistakes, the things he went through he created, nobody else created them, and he came out the other side.’’
That is why this is now up there among the great comebacks in sport. People have overcome worse injuries. Abebe Bikila won the Olympic marathon six weeks after surgery for appendicitis. Colin Meads played with a broken arm when the All Blacks beat Eastern Transvaal in 1970. Bert Trautmann helped Manchester City win the 1956 FA Cup final with a broken neck. Ben Hogan won the 1950 US Open 16 months