Tiger Woods — Losing his edge
1August 11, 2010 by styagi68
See below an article laying out a rather sad description of a man who became a legend within his lifetime. He was heralded as the greatest golfer ever. And now he has to work hard not to come first from the bottom! This story illustrates two points:
1) Miscalculation of odds: As a professional golfer he must have been really good at calculation of odds. Should I try to hit it over the water 220 yards and drop it on the green or play safe and lay it up? Should I take a full swing with a short club or a half swing with a long club when the ball is nestled deep in the rough.
But he got one odds calculation wrong–Should I cheat just this once or not. Clearly his calculation lead him to believe that the risks of getting caught and consequences thereof were worth taking on. This miscalculation is common to some very powerful and successful people. People like Bill Clinton. They believe that they are invincible and that they can never fail.
But he was wrong. He underestimated the devastation it will cause to him, his game and everyone around him. So in the end he did not factor in the risk and costs properly.
2) Importance of living in the present: The same golfer who could never miss, now is playing 18 over par! It is the same body, he has the same skills, so what is different. It is his mind, his self doubt. Same thing happens to us when we are angry, or sad, or insecure in our capabilities. We can’t even do things we know so well. What is this “distraction?” And how does one master it. Carrying the burden of the past and worries of the future can make a Tiger into a cat. So we should learn to live in the present.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703589404575417560025777460.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks_1
The Unsettling Sight of a Tiger Tamed
Woods’s Career-Worst Score Furthers a Kind of Harsh Correction on a Career That Had Been All Irrational Exuberance
By JASON GAY
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Remember when golf was going to save Tiger Woods?
That was the dubious pop-psych theory last winter, as Mr. Woods uneasily emerged from a self-imposed shame hibernation following a conga line of messy allegations about his private life.
Saying “sorry” wasn’t Mr. Woods’s métier. His apologies were scripted and wooden, at times strangely defiant. A blue-curtained press conference in Florida appeared transmitted from Planet Awkward. A Nike commercial featuring his late father’s disembodied voice bordered on macabre.
Just let him play golf, his defenders said. That’s when you’ll see the real Tiger. That’s when the healing and absolution will begin. An opportunistic brigade of armchair therapists were quick to prescribe 18 holes—or perhaps, a 15th major—as a remedy for acute off-the-course trouble.
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Associated Press
Tiger Woods tips his cap to the gallery as he walks to the 18th green during Sunday’s final round of the Bridgestone Invitational, where he finished with a score of 18-over-par.
It was foolish medicine, more hair of the dog for a hangover. Who knew what Tiger Woods needed? Surely Mr. Woods didn’t, not as he watched his pristine, sponsor-burnished reputation circle a very expensive drain.
We shouldn’t have masked our selfishness. Mr. Woods’s tabloid saga was tawdry and tedious; everyone longed to see him swing a club again. It was really fun to watch Mr. Woods play golf, and his stand-ins were likable but unglamorous. Not even Retief Goosen wants to watch 18 holes of Retief Goosen.
But it’s been four months since Mr. Woods returned to playing golf, and the sport has not been his redemption—or any fun. He has yet to win a competition since his infamous early-morning car accident, and on Sunday, he finished a tournament tied for 78th place, two errant shots from dead last.
Had it not been for a ghastly round on Sunday by his rival Phil Mickelson, Mr. Woods would have statistically relinquished his throne as the world’s No. 1-ranked player.
But that’s just fine print. The headline is Tiger Woods is lost. Earth’s most famous golfer does not cut an especially sympathetic figure, but his descent is a sad sight. A former fist-pumping king now finds himself vacant and glum—Unhappy Gilmore.
This past weekend was brutish. On Thursday, Mr. Woods teed off in Akron, Ohio—the home of another gifted but ill-advised king—at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, a tournament he’d won seven times, including last year. He promptly carded a flabby 74, added a 72 on Friday and plunged from contention.
At another tournament, Mr. Woods merely would have failed to make the cut and escaped in a jet Friday afternoon. But the Bridgestone is a no-cut affair, so Mr. Woods was forced to play on through the weekend for 36 more holes of ignominy—a jilted bride, cruelly asked to smile through a reception.
On Sunday, Mr. Woods shot a 77 to close out at an 18-over-par 298—the worst score of his career. His signature red Nike jersey was a strange intruder at the breakfast hour. Mr. Woods isn’t supposed to finish his Sunday work before “Meet the Press” wraps.
“Pretty grim,” the CBS announcer Jim Nantz said early Sunday afternoon.
It’s worthless to try and diagnose a specific golf ailment. Mr. Woods is fully scrambled. Outside of a fourth-place tie at the Masters—a finish that now looks as if it was accomplished on adrenaline and fumes of tabloid ink—he’s been searching erratically for fragments of his former greatness. Emotion has crept in. The theory that Mr. Woods was a cold- blooded compartmentalizer whose game would be immune to his personal crisis? A fantasy.
“It’s been a long year,” a hollow-eyed Mr. Woods told reporters afterward.
An unfamiliar rattle of skepticism now follows a relentless player who couldn’t ever be safely counted out. It’s no longer heresy, but fashionable, to say Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors—once thought to be laughably in reach—looks distant.
There is a stunning but rising clatter that Mr. Woods doesn’t deserve to be named to the coming U.S. Ryder Cup team. “I wouldn’t help the team playing like this,” Mr. Woods admitted Sunday. And Mr. Woods will be nobody’s favorite when the PGA Championship begins Thursday in Kohler, Wis.
But it’s silly to count him out altogether. A humanitarian might suggest that Mr. Woods shut it down and go home after the PGA, and he might. Better to break it down again and start anew, like he’s done before in rebuilding his swing. But this time, his chief afflictions may not be the least bit physical.
It’s tempting to draw a parallel between Mr. Woods’s struggle and the economic cloud lingering over this country. For most of the previous decade, Mr. Woods surfed a similarly irrational wave of exuberance. Though golf is historically a merciless game, few thought his greatness could ever stop.
After years of prosperity, however, there’s been a harsh correction, forcing reduced expectations and the pursuit of modest victories
But that’s the same overreaching nonsense that prematurely elevated Mr. Woods as an infallible legend who could play by different rules.
Tiger Woods is just a professional golfer. And right now, he’s not a very good one.
Dear Sandeep
Loved your blog on Tiger. Enjoyed reading the other posts as well.
Looks like we have the beginnings of a book here!
Warm regards
Ashutosh