The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Golf without Tiger nearer to reality after crash
The PGA Tour without Tiger Woods was always inevitable purely because of age. His shattered right leg from his SUV flipping down a hill on a sweeping road through coastal Los Angeles suburbs only brings that closer.
Golf wasn’t ready Feb. 24 to contemplate the future of its biggest star after the 10th and most complicated surgery on the 45-year-old Woods. There was more relief that he was alive.
“Listen, when Tiger wants to talk about golf, we’ll talk about golf,” Commissioner Jay Monahan said at the World Golf Championship in Florida. “When you’re going to overcome what he needs to overcome, I think the love of all of our players and everybody out here, it’s going to come forward in a big way and across the entire sporting world.
“I think he’ll feel that energy and I think that’s what we should all focus on.”
Woods made it clear what he faces with an update posted early Wednesday to social media by his team that outlined the “long surgical procedure” at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
Anish Mahajan, the chief medical officer, said Woods shattered tibia and fibula bones on his right leg in multiple locations. Those were stabilized by a rod in the tibia. He said a combination of screws and pins were used to stabilize additional injuries in the ankle and foot.
Four previous surgeries to repair ligaments were done on the left knee. This is the first major trauma to the right leg. Woods has had five surgeries on his lower back in the last seven years. The most recent was in December, a microdiscectomy to remove a pressurized disk that was pinching
a nerve.
“I would say, unfortunately, it’s very, very unlikely that he returns to be a professional golfer after these injuries,” said Dr. Michael Gardner, chief of orthopedic trauma at Stanford Medical Center. “His age, his multiple back issues, this is going to be a very long road ahead if he chooses to attempt to return to his previous level of golfing.”
Can golf do without the player singularly responsible for its growth?
His watershed victory in the 1997 Masters sent media interest in golf soaring. More than just the first player of Black heritage in a green jacket, he won at a more prolific rate than anyone in history. The timing was impeccable, for the PGA Tour negotiated a television contract that made prize money spike.
Woods won his first tournament as a 20-year-old in the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational, where the total purse was $1.65 million. At the World Golf Championship this week, first place alone is worth $1.82 million.
Woods made everyone rich.
What now?
The PGA Tour has been down this road before.
Ten years ago, when Woods was still smarting from the sordid revelations of serial adultery and missed three months with more injuries, the PGA Tour negotiated a nine-year television deal with increased rights fees. There was no assurance Woods could get back to the top of his game.
Woods was playing a small schedule even when he was younger and healthier. He has never played more than 21 times in a year on the PGA Tour, which stages events in 46 weeks this season.
He also tends to return to the same courses. But when he plays, and there isn’t a pandemic, no one needs to study TV ratings to measure his impact. Fans often stand six and seven rows deep behind tees and greens to get a look. No other player attracts that kind of attention. The top 10 in the world combined don’t do that.
Woods doesn’t move the
needle. Woods is the needle.
“It’s always great when he plays at a tournament or is out here because it gives that tournament an extra dimension that it usually doesn’t,” four-time major champion Rory McIlroy said. “We were all sort of heading towards that day that Tiger wasn’t going to be a part of the game.”
Woods had only one top10 finish last year, and that was before the pandemic. Even after golf returned, he waited an additional month to get started. He played only seven times since July and never cracked the top 35. He remains one victory short of his 83rd victory, which would set a PGA Tour record, the one most reasonable for him to break. That was before the crash.
McIlroy already has seen one comeback. He often talks about having lunch one day with Woods in Florida, right after Woods’ fourth back surgery to fuse his lower spine. He saw the pain. And two years later, he saw Woods win the Masters for a fifth time, his 15th major.
CANTON >> Coming into the Division II state meet Feb. 24, Chagrin Falls had never had a girls diver record a state top four in school history.
There’s only one better way to put a crack in that proverbial glass ceiling. Make two.
Kate LaMonica was the D-II state runner-up with an 11-dive score of 445.35, and Samantha Holtz took third with a 444.30, behind state champion Grace Courtney of Cincinnati Wyoming (485.80).
In her fourth career appearance at state, LaMonica earned her highest career finish, after taking eighth, 10th and fifth in her prior three trips to Canton
McKinley’s Branin Natatorium.
Due to COVID-19 protocols, the Minnesota signee’s smile postmeet was hidden by a mask. But there was nothing hidden about the enthusiasm for a career milestone in her high school diving swansong.
“I am so happy,” LaMonica said. “I literally cannot explain how happy I am. I’ve improved every single year, and that to me is a reward in itself that I got to come here for the fourth year in a row.
“It did feel pretty consistent. There were a couple dives where I feel like I left out a few points. I could have improved on those individually. But overall, I thought it was one of the best meets that I’ve had, and I felt really strong and consistent.”
LaMonica encouraged early with a 45.60 on her second dive, an inward 1 ½ pike, and hit a 46.00 to close the preliminary round on Dive 5, a back 1 half twist free.
The state runner-up was sealed, in a tight race with her promising freshman teammate Holtz, was a 46.00/46.80 to close on her final two dives.
“The previous years, having that in my background, is giving me that sense of security of having been here, and that helps the nerves a little bit,” LaMonica said. “But I wanted to finish my senior year off strong. So that definitely did not help the nerves, but again, I was happy I was able to pull off what I did.
“I was so happy I was able to close with (two 46s). Finishing on fronts, I would say, is a little bit harder, especially for me since my hurdle is a little bit of a struggle area. But I’m so happy with 46s. I’ll take a 46 any day.”
LaMonica will also take the solace of knowing the Tigers’ diving prowess will be in good stead with Holtz coming back to Canton for the foreseeable future.
“Yeah, with her in charge, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s first next year,” LaMonica said. “She can definitely do it. She’s a beast.”
That beast mode was emphasized with a mature performance in Holtz’s state debut.
The freshman, who won the D-II Massillon Perry District this past week, hit three 40-plus dives in prelims before closing with three 40s in the final round. Of particular note was a 48.30, a News-Herald coverage area-best score of the day, on her penultimate dive, a forward 2 pike.
“Honestly, it’s amazing to have Kate as a classmate and as a teammate,” Holtz said. “She is always there with me. It was an amazing meet. It was so special for great friends to be up there together.
“My front double pike, I’ve think getting my hurdles solid. I’ve been really struggling with my foot placement at the end of the board. So getting solid and having multiple practices where I could fix that, it really made that dive the way it was.”
The third member of the area D-II girls diving contingent at state also capped her career in style. Hawken senior Ariana Khan took a career-best fifth in her third state berth, recording a 407.70. She was two points off becoming the first Hawks’ girls diver to crack the top four at state since 1990.
The Division I sectional semifinal on Feb. 24 between Euclid and host Riverside shaped up as an interesting clash between an up-and-down Panthers team that had faced a rough schedule, and a Beavers squad having its best season in over a decade.
Euclid took all the drama out of it in the first quarter. Bursting out to a 30-15 first quarter lead, the Panthers led by no less than 14 the rest of the way in cruising to a 90-65 victory.
Euclid junior Clayton Cunningham led all scorers with 24 points. Jaden Wanton (22), Michael Patterson (19), and Cameron Smith (11) joined him in double figures. The Panthers will travel to Canton GlenOak to play a sectional final on Feb. 24.
“Our game plan was to push the pace and put pressure on the ball,” Cunningham said, in describing the Panthers’ first outburst. “That’s what we did.”
Not only did they push the pace, but the Panthers also controlled the boards
by a large margin. Euclid pulled down 42 rebounds compared to 20 for the host Beavers.
“We’re in, in my opinion, the greatest conference in the state of Ohio,” Euclid coach John Kane said, referring to the Greater Cleveland Conference. “We see teams night in and night out where we have to give our best shot to even be in games. I think that is what prepared us for tonight and going forward.”
Euclid (7-8) connected on 12 of 21 shot attempts in the first quarter, and frequently gave itself second and third chances with offensive rebounds, while holding Riverside to one and done at the other end.
“We emphasized that we had to out-rebound them,” Kane said. “With the way they shoot it, we didn’t want to give them second, third, and fourth chances. Fortunately Jaden and Cam, despite their foul trouble, were pretty dominant down there.”
Riverside (15-8) found itself in too deep of a hole
early, and its deficit reached 44-25 at halftime. The Beavers continued to battle,
and forced 12 turnovers in the second half while cutting into the Panthers’ lead, but got no closer than 6450 early in the fourth quarter.
“In a lot of the games we lost this year, almost all of them, we got dominated on the boards,” Riverside coach Matt Grendel said. “Even when Euclid was missing, they ended up getting their own rebound and scoring anyway. That’s pretty much been the story of our season. We had a very successful season in terms of what our overall record was, and that’s a testament to our seniors.”
Charlie Fox led Riverside with 14 points. Caden Geiger and Ian Ioppolo added 12 each, while Andrew Taggart had 11. Grendel is excited for the future of the program, with Fox, Ioppolo and Taggart all part of a strong returning group, but will miss the six seniors try program will be losing.
“There’s not enough good things to say about them,” Grendel said of his seniors. “They’ve all represented the program in a big way. They’re the type of role models you want. Ever since they were freshmen, they completely committed to everything we did.”