Is Tiger tanking?  Have we already seen the best of Tiger?

A year ago Tiger was on top of the world – his and ours.  We all thought he was invincible.  Even my mother thought he was a robot, trained to make all the right shots at all the right times.  I liked his game, I like him.  He was what we taught all junior golfers to emulate, be like and play like.  Wow, were we really wrong?

I wrote earlier this year about how wrong it is to put sports personalities as our every day heroes.  When we do that we are setting ourselves up to get hurt and we were.  We all thought Tiger was unbeatable.  He only told us what he wanted us to hear.  He was guarded with his life and his golf game.  Every one who was in his “camp” was told what to do and what he wanted to learn.  He directed everyone and really thought he was untouchable.

The media still writes all about Tiger to this day.  We all know what happened last year at Thanksgiving.  We heard about the wreck and then slowly his exploits came to the surface.  We did not see Tiger for months and when we did, he announced it on national television and apologized to everyone about his wrong doings.

He then began his comeback to the sport he truly loves.  We thought he was back when he finished fourth at the Masters.  We all made predictions about when he would win again.  Life just does not perform for us like we want it to.

This past week, Tiger concluded his worst event as a professional golfer at the Bridgestone Invitational. In his post round interviews he stated; “Shooting 18 over par is not fun.  I don’t see how it can be fun shooting 18 over, especially since my handicap is supposed to be zero.  It’s tough.  Yeah, it’s tough.  It’s been a long year”.

Asked what he needs to do to turn it around, Woods said, “I need to hit the ball better, I need to chip better, I need to putt better and I need to score better.”

Have we seen the best of Tiger?  I can’t answer that.  But I do know that golfers are not intimidated by Tiger anymore.  He set the bar high; farther than we thought anyone could reach when he played his best.  But he also exposed the bar to everyone else when he faltered.

I want to see Tiger play great again.  He was exciting to watch.  He is a brilliant shot maker and player.  And when he plays his best, well, he is tough to beat.  But I sure do like seeing the other golfers not lay down.  They keep getting better and better and soon the number 1 ranking will be held by another player.  It is inevitable, it will happen.  But, I personally hope that we see the old Tiger once again.

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