So golf might not be your bag? No problem, Tiger's pure dominance makes every stroke captivating. As fans of sport and athletic competition all agree, the display of greatness Tiger provides with unfathomable consistency is a spectacle like no other.
He delivered today in heroic fashion. Coming from 7 shots back with 36 holes to play Woods capped off his 9th victory in last 10 tournaments and kept his perfect season alive. For the record, his only non-win was a 2nd place finish to Phil Mickelson.
Tigers unprecedented ability to execute in the clutch with flawless proficiency could excite a corpse. Standing on the green of the 72nd hole he eyed a slippery left-to-right downhiller for the birdie, the win, the streak, and history. After watching the first of his twenty-one 20ft+ putts of the week drop he stoked up the crowd with a flurry of raw emotion, perhaps knowingly celebrating the fact that he just matched Ben Hogans' 64 career PGA Tour victories.
But Hogan played in a vastly different era when golf was exclusive and elitist rendering the field notably less competitively balanced. Yet somehow Woods has managed to mirror his winning percentage (29.2 and 26.1, respectively) in spite of the dissimilar competitive climate in the PGA.
Whats most compelling about Tigers reign as the most dominant athlete in the world -- possibly ever -- is the reasonable assertion that he is the only player in the history of golf who loses every tournament he doesn't win. For far too many players in the PGA characterize success by Top 10's and good paychecks, whereas Tiger and his endless millions and unwavering champions' mentality plays like second best is as good as last.
It's this mindset that has propelled him to greatness throughout his career. It fosters his work ethic, his killer instinct and his zen-like concentration that will continue to project him towards every single all-time record the game of golf recognizes. Fans of super-human accomplishments rejoice, we've got another 15 years for this man to run away with the title of best golfer in history.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, be sure to subscribe for more analysis and opinion on the sporting world at Cloud9. Cheers, Derek.
3 comments:
Isn't Tiger amazing - 7 back from the lead to winning! If only I were half that talented...
...great blog by the way...sports and science must mix, I have an MS in biomedical science (honors as well) but spend as much time writing about sports as possible myself! Best of luck, I'll stop in again!
Hey Ricky Bobby, If you ain't first, you're last
I agree with andrew. Also when you win a kick ass sword, why would you give up... Tiger is the reason i defend golfers when people argue that they aren't real athelets.
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