I watched the whole thing.
Every last bit of it, two televisions and one DVR at a time.
Tiger Woods hitting rock bottom at the PGA Championship on Friday.
Jaw dropping.
I did so, not out of gleeful piling on, nor while doing a karmic rain dance on his swooshed head, hung in despair.
I watched, because I have watched just about every other significant moment of his incredible career. To pretend that it's not fascinating – in a horrifying sense at least – is a bald faced lie.
The collapse is perhaps more stunning than the often predictable field demolitions at majors. Those, we at least saw coming.
This? Never.
The Tiger that once laced a 210 yard 5-iron out of bunker on the 72nd hole in Canada, over a lake, with the tournament on the line? Replaced, with the Tiger who snap hooks a fairway wood out of his own hands like a broken bat single.
The Tiger that once never missed a single putt he absolutely had to make? Replaced by the Tiger who can leave an 18 footer a full 7 feet short.
We are truly in uncharted waters now, Eldrick fans and watchers. You can't simply click your heels and say “he'll be back” with the same confidence anymore. We don't know. He doesn't know. Nobody knows.
We can't just say: “Give him time with Sean Foley.”
We can't just say: “Wait until he gets healthy.”
We can't just say: “He's still the most talented player on the planet.”
Forget winning a major. Just winning again, is in doubt.
If you think this can't happen, you don't know sports or golf history. This game can shipwreck and abandon anybody.
Tiger is in the fight of his golfing life to slay this dragon and win again. I wonder if he knows that?
Where to start?
Well, there's the small things. And trust me. These are the SMALL ones....
Foley's methods are crap.
I say this, with no particular animus toward the man. I say it after hearing from many very smart golf pros and players who know the game. Plus, what is his track record as a teacher? Who is left in his stable of clients?
His knee is still going to be a problem.
And I say this, not as a doctor, but again talking to many smart people who know sports medicine and golf. Tiger got that way, with an exceptionally quick and violent swing, that snapped his left knee at impact straight more than anybody on the planet. Multiply that by over 500,000 swings in his career (rough estimate) and this won't be the last time we hear about it.
He plays too few events.
And they are the hardest ones to win, to boot. That schedule worked for Tiger age 21-34. It won't work now. He seems to have no interest in playing the John Deere or St. Jude's.
The game has changed.
Think about this. When Nick Faldo slipped the green jacket on Tiger's back in 1997 he was a mechanical, soft swinging technician who poofed it down the middle 260-ish and won 6 majors that way. Tiger comes along, demolishes the Augusta layout with staggering length, and without us even understanding it all, the game had changed right there.
It's changed again, as it always done from era to era. Now, young punks (affectionate term) like Keegan Bradley are crushing the ball over every bunker and dogleg in the world. Trust me. They aren't behind Tiger's ball in the fairway anymore. Their swings are the product of computerized, 1000 frames per second video analysis.
The 20-something set today on Tour, are not deep thinkers. They bomb it, and go pin-seeking. They'll either go stupid deep, or crash and burn. No big deal. Send out a tweet, go to bed, have at it tomorrow.
Mind you, none of these kids will author the kind of dominance Tiger did. Nobody. Not Rory. None of them. But the problem for Tiger, is that there are too many of them. So if it's Nick Watney one week, it's Dustin Johnson the next, or Rory, or Charl Schwartzel, or somebody.
Which brings me to the biggest point. Nicklaus and his record 18 majors.
What if Tiger were to come out one week and say something like this: “You know, Jack's record is going to be tough. Let's be honest. I still hope to have a chance at it, but I'm realistic about it, and if it doesn't happen, that's okay. I just want to come back to the level of playing beautiful golf, and winning tournaments. We'll see where the total ends up many years from now.”
Yeah. I know. He'll never say that.
Which is really his problem. He's playing the game right now, for all the wrong reasons. He will say he's playing to break Nicklaus' record, but in reality he's playing the game to someday be able to deliver one last gigantic “forget you” (apologies, Cee Lo Green) to all of his enemies, media critics, and haters.
He's programmed to deliver “forget you's” to people.
Whether it's a swing coach, caddy, or TV announcer who crosses his imaginary line of loyalty, or a sponsor who drops him, or an opponent who disses him, he lives for the f-you.
He wants one more big one, bad. Really bad. An “f-you” that will reverberate down to every dick with a blog, like me.
You can tell by the way he still talks in front of the golf media. They ask him a reasonable question, about reasonable expectations, and he goes back to the old Tiger mode of saying he expects to win.
“A “w””, he said about his expectations at the PGA. “A nice W.”
Dude. Get real. Nobody is buying it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said there are no second acts in American lives.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I know this: Tiger needs to start a second act to his career. He needs an attitude re-invention. He needs to re-think why he plays golf, and what he wants to accomplish from now until he's 50 and eligible for a cart and 3 round, no-cut tournaments.
The old Tiger is not coming back. Not next year. Not once Sean Foley's brilliance finally soaks in. Never. He's gone. He was something to behold on the course, and a complete fraud off of it. The fire hydrant killed that guy, even though the police report will forever list the accident as one in which the driver sustained only “minor” injuries.
We all wondered if Tiger Woods would come back to the game a changed man.
Seen enough?
He's now twice the prick, with half the money. And it's getting worse by the tournament.
I remember a Chinese proverb that said: “If you want to be a beautiful painter, first become a beautiful person. Then, paint.”
A brilliant second act is there for Tiger, if he wants it. A second act where his genuine personality is more accessible to the fans, media, and fellow players. A second act where his formidable talent and experience, is still enough to beat back the horde of 20-something bombers on his best day.
A second act where chasing a stupid number, 18, is not the point of this incredible game of golf we play. Being able to once again bully and scorn those in the game you dislike, is no reason to hit balls until your game comes back.
Right now, the world's formerly most recognized, respected, and richest athlete, is in a death spiral of seething anger and denial.
It's not pretty.
But if you say it's somehow not newsworthy, you too are kidding yourself.
