Sadly, after a year of writing this column, I will be hanging up the gloves for at least a semester. I know all five of my readers will be crushed (Hi Mom!). But before I go, I'd like to touch on a subject that was one of the first I ever covered for The Tufts Daily: Tiger Woods.
As a naive first−semester freshman, I took on the assignment of writing an article on the end of the 2009 FedEx Cup. Phil Mickelson won the final tournament, while Woods took home the cup. I stated that "for one more year, the rest of the PGA is still looking up at golf's biggest names." I could never have guessed what was lurking just two months later.
Now, I'm a junior, and fond memories of Tiger's domination are as distant to me as those of the Yankees' glory years in the late '90s.
We all know the rest of the story: the Thanksgiving night car crash, the mistress allegations, the apology speech. Countless columns have been written on the subject, so I won't go back there. No, the reason I come back to Tiger is because something strange has started happening over the course of the last month.
Tiger is finding success on the golf course again.
Perhaps because the PGA season is over it hasn't gotten as much attention, but it's happening. In November, Woods took to the course for the President's Cup, a team competition. While his 2−3 record doesn't show it, there was something different about Tiger. On the opening day he was held back by erratic play from Steve Stricker, but in singles play on Sunday he shot 5−under in 15 holes to defeat Aaron Baddeley in a key late afternoon match.
For any that still doubted his resurgence, Tiger sent a strong message over this past weekend. In a field that included Zach Johnson, Hunter Mahan, Jim Furyk and Rickie Fowler, Woods jumped out to the lead on Thursday and Friday with a 69 and a 67, respectively. But he fell behind with a 73 round on Saturday that included five bogeys and looked much like a story we'd seen told many times over the past two years.
Yet coming out on Sunday, we didn't see the downtrodden Tiger of recent years, we saw the red−shirted, ice−veined Tiger of old. Woods bogeyed just two holes and put together back−to−back birdies on the 17th and 18th to win by a stroke, his first victory since that November night.
Despite recent injuries, he remains the most perfect physical specimen golf has ever seen — even if he is graying a bit. But Woods has always been a very mental player, and he has struggled to put together that part of his game.
Maybe it was the team environment two weeks ago that got him on the right path, or maybe he finally came to terms with some demons he was facing. But when he cracked a joke at his Wednesday press conference, joking "I'm swinging the club well enough that you don't need to walk out there with hockey helmets on," we may as well have put his name on the winner's check right then and there. The media has been Woods' nightmare, but now he has come full circle. He is finally comfortable again in the world he loves.
Perhaps I'm overanalyzing. Maybe this will be a passing phase, and Woods will never achieve his prior greatness. But in the individually driven sport that is golf, Woods' worst enemy was himself. And this week, Tiger did not just come out on top on the leaderboard, but in his mind as well.
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Ethan Sturm is a junior majoring in biopsychology. He can be reached at ethan.sturm@tufts.edu.
