Today, April 14th, was a historic day in the
world of sports, specifically golf, when Tiger Woods sealed a 5th
‘green jacket’ with a bogey putt at the 18th hole on Sunday
afternoon at the Augusta National. So,
Tiger winning his 81st PGA tour title—and 15th major title
and 5th green jacket-- why is that such a big deal? Because this win
says as much about life, as it does about sports. Here are the 7 reasons why
Tiger made history:
1.
Pulling oneself out of bad situations, calmness
under pressure—one of the challenges of golf as in life, no matter how good you
are, is that it will blindside you when you least expect it. But how you respond
to that situation says a lot about your game—and about you as a person. Tiger
had his fair share of missing the fairway and ending in the pine cones—but always
had the nerve --and the talent!-- to pull off a shot and save par. The other
thing about golf—and you guessed it, also in life!—is that draining experience
called ‘drama’. Avoiding drama around
the golf course, forced or unforced, is invaluable. While others had plenty of
drama hitting water hazards, Tiger played it safe and avoided all that (wish he
had followed this life lesson back 10+ years ago!).
2.
Experience and talent –using the “ridge” on the
16th hole was sheer genius, the wisdom of playing 22 Masters.
Tiger’s driving was back to his days of yore, and today the putting was too. To
win these tournaments, you don’t need eagles—if you don’t double bogey. Anything
worse than 2 puts will sink your chances. As reading the greens accurately and putting
effectively gets harder with age, thankfully it also comes with greater wisdom—and
better management of your own expectations—which
can make a big difference in the outcome—and the 12th hole was a great example of that.
3.
Going for 10 years and 10 months without a win
must be hard for a champion—so how do you prime yourself? Golf is as much a
game played between your ears, as on the course. Every bogey must immediately be deleted from
memory so as not to carry the ‘baggage’ to the next hole. For someone whose
name’s almost synonymous with the game, to overcome almost 400 straight days of
disappointments and utter defeats, is a herculean task --both in mind and body.
4.
Overcoming injuries, self-doubt, the doubts of
your peers: while driving the ball at 160 mph over 300 yards, the back injuries
that have plagued Tiger can take yards off the distance—and it has. His drives
off the T have averaged 285 yards, but on the plus side, have probably helped
reduced fatigue and improved his ability to stay on the fairway. With this win,
Tiger has once and for all, laid to rest the doubt he and other professional
golfers may have had that he would not win a Major again—and quite likely, with
this mental barrier removed, we can expect to see some great golf this summer!
5.
Adapting to technology—it is amazing how much
technology can impact this game. From
flash-faced technology for the driver that are forgiving of less-than-perfect
contact, to aerodynamic design to increase the club speed, to better balanced
putters for greater accuracy on the greens, to a variety of graphite and composite
material to redistribute the weight , to multi-layered balls for distance, to
the right shoes for support and comfort, there’s virtually no area of this game
that has not been impacted by technology—and all this tends to help the older
players stay competitive for longer, than in the yesteryears of golf.
6. A new coach—with his long
game under control and hitting the greens in regulation an astonishing 80% with
that “squeeze fade” adjustments to his swing, it was his short game on the
putting greens that had held him back—until today. With a new putting coach to
avoid the bane of the professional golfer, the 3-putt, for Tiger it was good enough to win by a stroke.
7.
Finally, nothing matters without a healthy dose of LUCK! The 4th
round on Sunday was moved up 5 hours and the players were grouped into
threesomes, starting simultaneously at the 1st and 10th holes, forced as a result of a mid-afternoon thunderstorm forecast. This must
have been a god-send to Tiger, by far the oldest name on the see-sawing Sunday afternoon leaderboard. He
astutely observes other players to see how they are doing, what clubs they are
using, the way the ball in flight and upon landing behaves—and adjusts his game
accordingly. Even when putting, with some of the greens being readjusted to
make it harder to read the holes, threesomes
help the more experienced golfer more than the standard 2-way pairing. While
Tiger is in great shape physically, the fact that threesome rounds are about
30% slower helps take the edge off of fatigue for a 43 year-old when walking 7475 yards (about 7 km) of the
Augusta National Golf Course, against much younger opponents!
With the chant of “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!” getting to be a roar from his fans, look for a whole new generation of kids hitting the greens this summer. Good for the game—and good for TV ratings! It’s amazing how much a single athlete can impact others. And it is always good to remember that success is not just about winning, it's also about failing--but getting up again and again and again...and if you do that often enough, Lady Luck will eventually give you a hand!
#golf #pga #tigerwoods #masters #augustanational
