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From the hearth: Sorry about this, old news.
Tiger's Tremor
Other triumphs are inevitable, more majors. Tiger's funny. This past Masters could pump him up, give him additional motivation that actually translates into success; the best kind of kick, private and searing. Tiger goes about redeeming his little misstep, never speaking of it again, and we move on.
The nub, looking back, wasn't in his mistake of not correcting his caddie's club selection. That's not it at all. A bad swing, a bad decision, these things happen, even to Tiger. A round is a constant negotiated challenge. We forget how unusual a pairing it is in sports, a caddie right alongside. Where else does an athlete work in tandem, stride for stride, with a colleague, employee, psychologist, coach, friend, advocate? It's how Tiger handled it that caught everyone off guard. He lost his cool.
Whether he ever sits down, reflects and shares this episode with the world is unlikely. Highly. But there it was, a grudging admission after the round sounding as if he didn't fully buy it either. A most un-Tiger-like moment. Frustration seeping through the screen. Yes, he said, I wear the pants, my bad. Done deal. Conversations over club selections, of course, precede every shot, and there is no better pairing on tour in the opinion of many than Steve Williams and Tiger Woods.
Let's go back for a moment. At Pebble Beach, Tom Kite called for driver on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open. His caddie Mike Carrick recalled that the conditions "screamed" 3-wood. Screamed. He said nothing, his job possibly hanging in the balance.
"On the outside I was confident and sure; inside I was quaking over the thought of him hitting driver." Carrick no longer works for Kite, but his book, Caddie Sense, is entertaining in spots. Caddies, it's my experience, are like roadies. They like telling stories but won't talk about their current employer, only those from long ago.
And that's another part of the story we never get, the caddie's anxiety. Surely, at some point - sooner for some than others - the poker face loses its effectiveness and they just can't take the strain any longer. The player senses the unease, confidence ebbs. Next!
This time, with Tiger, it was what happened after he put his drive way into the woods, not the drive. The escape shot was passable, really, a fine left-handed out. But, then a ghastly wedge, then another back across. Disaster! Worst of all, it stayed with him. He couldn't shake it. That happens to others, not to Tiger, at least not to the Tiger we've become accustomed to following.
After the Masters, some even suggested he make a change. No. Tiger made a tactical error. HE made it. He owned up, admitted it. That's golf. That's also major championship golf, where pressure manifests itself in ways that torment the tightly wound thoroughbred like nothing else. No doubt his fellow competitors later watched this sequence with interest, especially Tiger's release of steam. Honestly, he was outplayed, on a Sunday, at Augusta National, by among others, an Aggie who had the misfortune to catch a carom off his chest in a fairway bunker. Imagine. Tiger, um, kind of, um, yea, lost it.
So, he's human, move on. Get over it. We have. Now we get to see if he has.
Finally - last point - there's this, the kind of pleasing discoveries one makes pulling an old friend down from the shelf after many years.
"He has said that what he likes best about himself…is his demeanor. "I strive to cultivate it. It's a conversation point. It's a selling point. 'He's icey and he's elegant. Imperturbable.' What it is is controlled cool, in a way. Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat."
Tiger? No, it's Arthur Ashe, actually, speaking in John McPhee's excellent Levels of the Game (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969).
Tiger's demeanor is a conversation point these days, but not in the way it was before Masters week. No longer imperturbable. Now he gets an important test, against his own failings which is what golf and sport is all about.
The distinguishing mark of the truly memorable champion? That would be conquest, adversity and reinvention. They keep bumping up against themselves, raising the bar, clipping it with their heel, then adapting. Or not. Tiger now reaches for a new level of his game, or he struggles to, or he doesn't. Either way he bears watching - perhaps more so now - still more compelling, certainly, than anyone in golf - win or lose.
Yardage Book
Recommended Reading
1. The Man Behind the Mystique
by Martin Davis
The mystique remains unscathed, Hogan the sphinx smiling perfunctorily at award ceremony after award ceremony. The swing, displayed here in exquisite detail, is more than enough to content those for whom Hogan remains a remarkably deserving, if enigmatic, figure. Those as yet unfamiliar will find this a splendid primer.
2. Chasing Tiger
by Curt Sampson
The most moving of modern moving targets is explored through those involved in the dogged and decidedly un-Zen-like pursuit of an astonishing (and astonishingly mature) talent, armed with an acumen and zeal for checkbook issues perhaps unmatched among professional athletes. Can anyone get close enough to Tiger to dish the dirt? Why would he allow it? Truly Lindburghian in stature, overexposed, only faintly understood, how difficult it must be for Tiger chasing his own tail in search of normalcy.
3. Understanding the Golf Swing
by Manuel de la Torre
A master teacher's life's work, a splendid crystalline dissection of the fundamentals, laid out with
simplicity, unmistakable kindness and concern.
4. The Real Monty
by Colin Montgomerie with Lewine Mair
Even 25,000 'Be Kind to Monty' buttons don't seem to have dulled the whipping boy's propensity to find
hot water, often of his own steeping. As his Ryder Cup redux demonstrated, he still bears watching, and
he very much bears reading. This is so much better than most player bios. He's obviously aware that he
can be his own worst enemy. "My body language lets me down time and time again and, just as I can look
almost too confident as I stride down a fairway when all is going well, so, as I am the first to admit,
I can look a miserable so-and-so when things start to go awry." He's one of those players where you
almost have to look.
5. Fairway Dreams
by Lauren St. John
Out of their "work clothes," stars and denizens alike of the European PGA Tour all appear to the author as well-kempt (if not always well behaved) students. Their travail across the continent and back makes for compelling, if somewhat dated, reading. That top playing Euros continue to come here is hardly a surprise; their success even less unexpected given the litmus test of survival they face overseas but there's no denying they have more fun, or did.
6. Conscious Golf
by Gay Hendricks
Three "secrets" from a best-selling author and accomplished corporate coach, enthusiastic about his golf as only those who come to the game later in life can be. He finds parallels and parables, from the effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing to the importance of completion. Finishing a swing, dealing with an unresolved hurt, prioritizing tasks in business, it's all the same. If as conservative a bunch as the tour players have been open minded with respect to matters between the ears, there's no reason why the rest of us can't put it to good use.
7. letters to a young golfer
by Bob Duval with Carl Vigeland
A father's insights into golf, personal tragedy and resilience, this collection, without beating its chest or working the crowd, quietly delivers a poignant memoir of the plight and joy of pursuing the game at the highest levels. A third-generation professional golfer, Duval Jr., perhaps not the modern game's most sympathetic figure, emerges as less of an enigma.
8. The Wit & Wisdom of Bobby Jones
Edited by Sidney L. Matthew
Selected nuggets from the elegant pen of the great amateur and virtuous paragon, Jones's w. & w. can never stale. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff. Taking the pearls out of context is slightly grating. With books of this sort, the committed merely satisfies the urge by curling up with the original texts, dog-eared and likely never far from reach. For those new to the subject, well, then, dig in. And, even the devotee needs no excuse to renew acquaintance with the only golfer whose powers of observation are equaled by his playing credentials.
9. That's Golf
by Al Barkow
Key and minor figures from decades of professional golf and diversions into engaging nooks and crannies distinguish this collection of magazine pieces from an ink-stained curmudgeon. Golf dreams, the pervading influence of one's home course, "playing dumb," gambling at D.C.'s-famed Potomac Park, a lesson with Alex Morrison, all good stuff.
10. Arizona's Greatest Golf Courses
by Bill Huffman
First page of the leaderboard in the Coffee Table Classic Invitational, an experienced newspaper hand gets the glossy treatment, combining solid reporting and feature writing with the bulging biceps of expensive production. What a concept! Throw in one of the game's truly magnificent settings as a backdrop and everything comes up saguaros.
NOTE: Yardage Book © appears monthly, exclusively on THR. All books listed have been
reviewed elsewhere on THR in greater depth. They are informally ranked at the editor's discretion and
are not based on sales, date of publication, hype, the stars, financial inducement (Ho! Ho!) or anything
other than his own personal preference. Only books that have been reviewed on THR are included.
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