That’s what Tiger did:
For me those 91 holes were just about the most impressive thing I’ve seen in golf in a long time. And it’s taken a while for it to fully settle in. While responding to a post by golf fitness guru Mike Pederson on his blog it made me wonder exactly what was it that was so fascinating about this victory and what is it that really marks Tiger out.
For me it’s one concept and perhaps a dozen different words:
- Resolve
- Determination
- Guts
- Will power
- Strength of mind
- Grit
- Fortitude
- Steadfastness
- Tenacity
- Focus
Okay so that’s only ten but you get the picture. Tiger has, through years of focus, managed to elevate almost every aspect of his game to a level beyond the rest. And that doesn’t mean that his putting is a bit better or that he drives the ball a little further or that his short game is a fraction more accurate it means that everything is better including the intangibles. His fitness, his mind control, his practice regimes, his family life and balance – it all matters to him. And what this produces is this incredible drive and determination so that when things are tough he can dig very deep into the well and produce the sort of result that we saw in the last few days.
His level of overall ability is such that we can’t really compare him within the world of present day golf any more. In the past Hogan and Nicklaus achieved very similar levels of dominance but these days nobody else is close. Can you really imagine Mickelson wobbling around with a dodgy knee showing that kind of grit? I think not and he’s the number two player in the world (and by a large margin)
No, to really compare Tiger we need to look outside the sport. We need to look at people like Muhammad Ali and Michael Schumacher – people who took every aspect of their sport and turned it a little on it’s head. Yesterday reminded me of Ali vs Foreman far more than any golf match (and I mean that with no disrespect to Rocco Mediate) or Schumacher in his frankly rubbish Ferrari at Barcelona in ‘96. Or Ayrton Senna destroying the competition in a totally inferior Mclaren at Donington in ‘93. All situations where the greats really had to rise up against the odds and show what they were made of.
An incredible and fascinating few days.
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