Dear Tiger.
Congratulations on your incredible Masters victory. I know you have received accolades from around the world, as you should. You deserve every ounce of praise that was heaped on you. like millions of other fans, I read as much as I could about your victory and its impact on golf. The victory was witnessed by a record setting number of TV fans, the wall to wall coverage focused on your victory, the amazing comeback, and your potential of exceeding Jack’s record number of Majors. I felt only one thing was missing in the ocean of media coverage. What was left out was the journey you had to endure getting to that very moment of victory. Few, if any, have any concept of what you had to go through, had to sustain, on what must have been a lonely, frustrating and exhausting path to get to that final putt on Sunday.
My take on your comeback is different and, I felt, was not given the attention it deserved, which I guess is why I am writing this letter. Your comeback had nothing to do with gender, sponsors, nor behavior, but has everything to do with resolve, sacrifice, patience, commitment and courage.
Let’s start with your sport, golf. If one wants to win in golf it is best not to get old and by all means don’t ever get injured. Those two things alone are career enders for most professional golfers. While you age in golf and sustain injuries your competitors get younger, stronger, healthier and better. You suffered from both. You got older and was seriously injured. There are many who speculate that your previous questionable behavior might have had something to do with the injuries you sustained, as humiliation can have an emotionally debilitating effect on anyone, but regardless, while you were dealing with your many injuries, whatever their cause, unfortunately you were also aging at the same time.
Next, left out of most discussions is golf is not a team sport. It is an individual sport. You play it alongside many others but you play it alone. The best players have trainers, managers, agents, psychologists, therapists, etc., literally an army of supporters to help them get better, especially if they have money. But when standing over the ball, ready to drive, chip or putt no one hits the shot, but you. The shot is up to the player, not his supporters, or team members. Every shot is on him. No one gives him a mulligan for being injured, an extra stroke due to his age or an exemption due to his personal foibles. It is on him to hit the shot or not. Amplify that single shot by 18 holes, four days in a row, alongside the world’s best players, all of whom have the ability to hit that shot as well, if not better than you and it only magnifies by a factor the challenges facing all golfers at all levels
In your case, add 11 years to the drought. If now 43, eleven years ago you were 32, the absolute prime of every golfer’s life, when you last won an event, let alone a major. At that stage of your career you were already a legend, having accomplished more than anyone had in the past and no doubt would in the future.
You had nothing to prove. Nothing. You could have put down your clubs and would never have lost your many records of accomplishment. But you chose to pursue your passion the only way you knew how.
Where were you and what were you doing during those seemingly lost 11 years? Subsequent to all the front page, bad press concerning your personal behaviors we also read about your four back operations, watched you collapse and withdraw during a PGA event due to debilitating back pain, watched you miss several cuts, drop out of events due to injury and lose several times after coming close. In fact, several of the majors did not even invite you because you either did not qualify nor make the cut after two rounds. That had to be massively humiliating and depressing. After all you are Tiger Woods, for crying out loud. At one point I don’t think you were even ranked in the top 200 players in the world. The tour players, now competing with you, probably all grew up with you as their idol. During those 11 years they were walking the same courses, competing in the same events, watching you, not playing poorly but pathetically. It is hard to imagine how humiliating that must have been for you.
While underperforming at every level, nothing about your game, swing, short game, putting and preparation or your life in general were exempt from scrutiny. Everyone in the sport had an opinion or advice and never hesitated to weigh in on what they thought was wrong with you and what they thought you had to do to recover.
That was only the public part of your golf life. The part we could watch on TV or read about in the papers and magazines, but none of it had anything to do with what actually was going on behind the scenes. The commitment you had to make, that none of us could see or hear. What it was you actually did, that we were all unaware of, to get to that 18thgreen, in Augusta, at the Masters, needing only three putts to win your fifth jacket and 15thmajor? That story can only be told using the above words, sacrifice, patience, resolve, work, commitment etc.
Every golfer at every level knows axiomatically that he has to practice every day, if they want to continue to get better. And, they all do. That means they hit balls, putt, chip, hit sand shots, practice difficult shots and reproduce just about every conceivable situation they may face in a tournament and practice all of them, relentlessly. I mean hitting thousands upon thousands of shots, day after day after day. And that is only the golf part. You also had the surgery recovery part. The physical therapy, the pain, the stretching, the weight regimen and the setbacks. Who would be alongside you during all those practice and rehabilitation hours or years? Not the media, occasionally a coach for a few hours, not a therapist, nor agent, nor sponsors. Maybe not even Joey. No one can practice for you and no one can help you, simply by being there. Golf, like most sports at the highest level, is about repetition, over and over and over again. By yourself, alone with no one watching, no applause, no encouragement and no sponsors standing there giving you money and praise for all your efforts. It is just you and your own personal commitment, resolve and passion. If rich beyond measure, no one needs to sweat like that, nor suffer the anguish of the debacle that might have been your last event, the one you could not finish, let alone win. And you Tiger, are beyond rich.
Faced with the early overwhelming level of public distain for your personal choices you could have easily dropped out of competitive golf and lived a good life with you two adorable children and found a number of areas in golf where you would be not only welcomed but celebrated. Why should you subject yourself to the scrutiny of a turned off public, a less than acceptable game when it would be so much easier to just disappear, skip all the scrutiny and rest on the past laurels. It takes a monumental measure of courage to do what you chose to do.
Who would do such a thing? And why? And, for eleven years? I maintain, only you, Tiger.
Your victory at the Masters has to be recognized as a metaphor for the characteristics we so admire but have in recent times seemingly overlooked in this country. The characteristics of hard work, effort, sacrifice, perseverance. Your accomplishment, in the face of such personal adversity and physical challenges, should be held up as a model to young people, boys and girls, that to compete at the highest levels, let alone win, one must be willing to sacrifice a great deal to achieve a dream.
Currently we read about parents paying to get their kids into college, bribing coaches, hiring others to take SAT tests. Where were these students in the process? How hard did they work, how much did they sacrifice or did they just expect their parents to buy it for them? What about athletes who use drugs to get an edge over those not on drugs but might be faster, stronger or, even yes, better? Is there an easier way than doing the required hard work? Lying, cheating, bribing, threatening, cutting in line all seem to be new and added choices. These are the behaviors we read about more and more on a daily basis not only from our athletes but from our elected officials, our highly compensated corporate executives and our leaders. If the end result is not what is imagined, they blame it on something or someone else. Everyone wants miracles, the easiest way possible. We don’t want to do what we have to do to succeed. It is just too hard. If we can’t get what we want, are unwilling to put in the hours of effort required, then money is the tool we use to buy what we want. Find the easy way and pay for it. That is what we are coming to
In effect we were not willing to go deep into that metaphorical cave, where there is only us, and practice until our hands bleed, or watch videos for hours to find that one flaw in our swing and go back to the cave and practice more. We might have wanted to attend that social event, taken a weekend off, gone on vacation and enjoyed ourselves as most of us do. Not you, Tiger. You stayed on the range, practiced your shots and then practiced some more. Courage? That defines courage.
I maintain we might always acknowledge your personal indiscretions, don’t need to condone nor excuse them. But we must accept them and deal with them as you have. Going forward we must highlight the massive effort, the overwhelming sacrifice that went into your come back and hold that up as an example to all people. If you want to win, you want to be a champion you are going to have to work for it. Tiger, your comeback redefines the word work You earned it, like very few others. Your strength, resolve and your commitment are metaphorical for what this country was founded on and is something we need to get back quickly. You can be our best example.
Sincerely
A fan
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