THANKS, Tiger, we needed that. Welcome to the real
world of golf, TigerNo, not your reluctance to be interviewed because you didn't win the Colonial Open over the weekend. I know it's difficult being a gracious loser because you don't know what it's like to lose. Not, yet, anyway. That'll come as you mature.
And you've got to give us media guys a break. You're still "The Man" at any golf tournament, whether you win or finish fourth as you did at Colonial. Not that finishing fourth is bad, mind you. I'm sure a lot of guys on the PGA Tour would give their last Titleist bag to do so.
I remember your name mentioned in the lead paragraph of a story -- the lead, mind you -- after the final round of the MCI Classic the week following your Masters victory. And you weren't even playing in the tournament. That's how big you are. You define every tournament as one that's important or not by your presence. So, obviously, it doesn't matter whether you win or not. Just your being there is news.
Also, you've got to realize Nike, Titleist and American Express paid you big bucks not just to play golf but to be their spokesman.
But what I want to thank you for is not winning. For plopping a shot in the water. For jabbing a pitch across across the green and into the bunker.
For being human.
WELCOME back to the real world of golf, Tiger. A world that's not perfect.
For a while, especially after the way in which you made a shambles of the Augusta National, you were simply out of this world. You played golf in a way Jack Nicklaus said was one that even he was not familiar with, which is saying something.
Even Michael Jordan misses a free throw. Even Ken Griffey doesn't hit a home run in every game. Even Jerry Rice drops a pass. But, until Colonial, nobody ever thought you'd screw up a golf shot or two, let alone not win.
So thanks, Tiger.
Thanks for reminding 24 million American golfers that it isn't that easy a game. Those who golf know it, even the touring pros except maybe for you. But we hackers all do.
Those who don't know golf think it's a simple game. After all, the ball just sits there, waiting to be hit. Nobody's trying to throw it past you at 100 miles per hour. So what's so hard?
It is. The ball might be stationary, but it's oblivious to the turmoil going on high above in the mind, tensed arms, shoulders and legs of the danger-sensing primate wielding a club the moment before impact.
INTERESTINGLY, while Tiger was struggling -- that is, not winning at Colonial -- I was reading an advance copy of one of the best books on golf to come out in years, "Breaking Eighty," by Lee Eisenberg, a fellow duffer.
I know that of the making of golf books there is no end, and some of them are wearisome to the flesh. But this one belongs on a short shelf of books on golf, including Michael Murphy's "Golf in the Kingdom," and "The Inner Game of Golf" by Timothy Gallwey.
Eisenberg's is not a how-to-play-golf book. It can't be. He only broke 100 with dumb luck and a mulligan or two. Rather, it's a book about how to learn how to play golf. "From a learner's point of view, not the teacher's," he says.
Obviously, even that isn't an easy task. That's why Eisenberg adds a subtitle: "A Journey Through the Nine Fairways of Hell." And he's a hell of a lot more fun to read than Dante.
His is the real divine comedy, which, when you think about it, is what golf really is.
In the end, according to Eisenberg, what's so great about golf is that performance isn't its only meaningful reward. And you don't have to be the best. Just be the best that you can be.
In golf, it's the journey that counts, not the destination.