I would like to first start off by apologizing to all the
loyal readers of AA for not having a post in quite a long time. We all know that the month of March was
full of exciting sports moments and we were not able to give our insights, so
for that we are deeply sorry.
However, now that our hiatus is over, we intend to return with a
vengeance, much like our main man Tiger Woods did with his win at Bay Hill to
claim his 7th Arnold Palmer Invitational victory. Tiger’s journey from that fateful 2009
Thanksgiving night to this moment has been, to say the least, eventful. The biggest thing though that I think
that killed Tiger more than anything was the fact that he just couldn’t win. Now, he has finally cracked through and
tasted the sweetness of victory. To
see really how far we have come, I thought we could journey back and chronicle
through time the progress that Tiger has made as well as our society.
November 30, 2009 – Tiger Woods get into a wreck outside of
his house, crashing his Buick into a fire hydrant and tree in his
driveway. At first most of us
don’t know what is going on.
Little did we know what would slowly come to reveal itself about Tiger’s
personal life over the next several weeks. From the fact that his wife tried to beat him with a golf
club, to the infamous message he left on one of his mistress’s phones that was
played on the news over and over, to the 16 different women that came out and
admitted to having an affair with him, to him eventually being unanimously
hated by every woman across America and the punch line to every joke anyone
told for about a month.
February 19, 2010– Tiger has his first press conference
since the whole incident and finally (somewhat) comes out with the truth and
gives an apology to his family. He
also says that he is going to take more time off from golf to get his mind
right, meaning that we weren’t going to see him play for a couple more months,
which killed the PGA’s TV ratings.
During this period he also lost many endorsement deals with most of the companies
he represented as well. I think
much of us left that press conference feeling that maybe he wasn’t completely
sincere, but that we just wanted to see him golf again and that is what we
cared about most.
April 8, 2010 – Tiger returns to golf for the first time in
about 4 months and everyone is anxious to see how he plays and mainly how the
crowds would treat him. For the
most part it was pretty normal, it wasn’t the normal “Tiger crowds” we were
accustomed to for so long, but what else would we expect. We live in a day and age now where
everything is so easily shared through the Internet and facebook that
professional athletes’ personal lives are bigger than ever. So, I think that his prior digressions
definitely translated into a smaller crowd at the tournament. As for his performance, he would finish
tied for 4th but his performance woes were just beginning.
August 10, 2010 – Woods, still struggling, hires Sean Foley
as his swing coach. Earlier in
year Hank Haney resigned, but I think at this point much of America was tired
of hearing about Tiger. He hadn’t
won and quite frankly his play was pretty bad. He competed in the majors, but in the other tournaments his
play was abysmal including missing the cut at the PGA championship and withdrawing
from the Players Championship. At
this point the discussions were starting would Woods ever win a major again?
July 21, 2011 – Woods fires long time caddy Steve Williams
due to personal reasons and the Williams is very upset by this and makes it known
through multiple interviews. I
think that this was the first time people were starting to be on Tiger’s side
for once because many people made it known how unprofessional Williams behavior
after being fired was. Still,
Tiger’s play continued to show brief flashes of getting better, but still no
wins to show for. Due to injuries
and other things, many people are now convinced that Tiger may never win
another major again. He would go
on to fall as far down as #58 in the world golf rankings.
December 4, 2011 – Tiger finally breaks through and gets a win,
except only it doesn’t count. He
wins the Chevron World Challenge, but since it is not an official PGA event,
and only had 18 players in the field he can’t officially say he has won
again. However, looking back this
had to be a big confidence booster for him. He knew his game was starting to come back and he was just
waiting for a week to put it all together.
March 25, 2012 – After continued improvement including a 3rd
place finish at Abu Dhabi and a final round 62 at the Honda classic to almost
overtake the young gun Rory McCilroy, he finally put it all together to win the
Arnold Palmer Invitational. It was
more than that. While watching it,
I felt as though it was a flashback to Tiger’s heyday. There were enormous crowds following
him and that infamous “Tiger Roar” was back. It felt as though the past 30 months had been forgotten and
for Tiger I think he felt the same way.
Golf needs Tiger at the top of his game. Without him it just isn’t the same. He finally brought back those old
feelings of why we love golf so much and all the excitement that comes with
it. I think that America
collectively kind of forgave him to and said, “we know your not perfect Tiger,
but as long as you win, we still love you.” Now as we approach the Masters this weekend the excitement
couldn’t be higher. People are
once again picking him to win, and saying that, “Tigers Back!” Is he? Only time will tell, but I think
finding out in the near future is going to be one hell of a ride!
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