TIGER’S BIGGEST BATTLE
Lupica: Woods must make Hogan-like return if he’s going to have another act in golf after brutal car crash
The fall for Tiger Woods, long before we took his golf and himself back up to such a high place at the 2019 Masters, began in another SUV, at his home in Florida, on Thanksgiving night in 2009.
There was an argument with his then-wife, and he got into the car and started down his driveway, and made a wrong turn at the end of it, and crashed into a mailbox, and ended up in the street, asleep with Ambien in his system. And no one knew it at the time, but his life in golf and his public life would never be the same.
Now life comes at him, and fast, again, this time in a car accident in the early morning in southern California, one that could have been much worse for him than it was.
After that crazy ride down the driveway in ‘09, of course, came scandal, and injuries, and surgeries, around which he could still play golf that reminded you of the golf he played when he was young, just not the kind he played when he was winning his first 14 majors, and looking like he wouldn’t just break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship, but airmail it, the way his drives once air-mailed everybody else’s on a golf course.
But finally, in his 40s, came the day in Augusta at The Masters when he won another green jacket, and then walked off the 18th green on Sunday and embraced his own son, Charlie, the way he had once embraced his father Earl after his first Masters. And it seemed, even though there would be more injuries, to his back and neck, after that, that at least for one extraordinary moment, in his sport and American sports, he’d had the kind of second act we once thought he would have. He was once again the greatest sports star we had. Again, and at last.
Now comes this accident, and a ruined car, and a trip to the hospital for surgery on his legs. We look at
pictures of his car, hood crumpled, windshield smashed, and think about pictures that the country and the world saw in February of 1949 when the car in which Ben Hogan and his wife Valerie were traveling home from California was hit by a Greyhound bus.
Now this is part of the second act for Tiger Woods that began in Florida that Thanksgiving night.
This becomes part of his story, not because of an accident in his driveway in the middle of the night this time, but on a straightaway at the border of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes at seven o’clock, when his Genesis GV0 SUV apparently struck a center median and then a curb and then went out of control and off the road and rolled over and ended up down a hill.
“No evidence of impairment,” the police said.
“A roll-over collision,” the sheriff’s department said.
It was just two days ago that he was handing out the trophy at Riviera, one of the world’s storied golf courses – and one still known as “Hogan’s Alley” – after the Genesis Invitational. Woods hosted that tournament, and after a playoff presented the trophy to an LA kid named Max Homa, one more young guy in golf who said he wanted to play the sport because of Tiger Woods.
Homa had grown up watching Tiger Woods. All guys his age grew up watching him, and dreamed about playing with him. Or being him. No one watching the Masters of 2019 will ever forget the scene of him hugging Charlie Woods, now 11-years old, the way he did. His life off the course, at least by now, seemed to be in a better place than it had ever been. Tiger Woods finally seemed happy being Tiger Woods, even as it became more clear that injury and age were likely going to keep him from ever getting a 16th major.
In the past, his left knee gave out. Then came all the surgeries to his back, an amazing number of surgeries for someone playing a non-contact sport. He was on with CBS’ Jim Nantz during the final round of the Genesis Sunday, and talked about his most recent surgery and another MRI, and made you wonder if there was any chance at all that he would play the Masters in April.
The downhill run for him started with a car, at the top of his driveway. Then there was the time, in 2017 in Jupiter, Fla., when cops pulled him over and he was found to have pain pills and sleep medication in his system. And you wondered all over again if things would ever be completely right for someone who was once the most famous sports star in this world.
Then he won golf’s Tour Championship, on a day when it seemed the whole world was following him up the 18th fairway. Then came April 14, 2019, and the way his game and nerves and all of his familiar grace held up over the final round, until he tapped in his last put and threw
back his head in exultation, because he had come all the way back.
“There were people who thought I could never win again,” he said. ogan came back from his accident and played the best major championship golf of his life. Maybe Tiger Woods, even at the age of 45, can somehow come back one more time. Maybe this accident isn’t the ending to his remarkable second act. Maybe it is the beginning of a third. He was once again the most famous athlete we have on Tuesday morning, mostly because he was lucky to be alive this time. One more wrong turn for Tiger Woods.
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