Tag: Eldrick

I Could Play Golf Like Tiger Woods I Just Don’t Want To

There have been many talented and disciplined people over the years that climbed to fame by performing consistently at the top levels of professional sports but Tiger Woods has succeeded in dominating his sport totally, joining the ranks of legends like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretsky. This article attempts to study the motivations of the superstar as he chose golf as a profession and went on to rack up astronomical statistics.

Golf is a sport that should be started as young as possible so that a natural swing can develop and become a smooth body motion, and Eldrick Tont Woods, known as Tiger Woods, was playing since he could stand upright. He was born in California so there was year-round warm weather to make serious golfing possible. His family was well-off enough to join the golfing class. Golf courses aren’t accessible to everyone so the children from the more affluent middle class have the advantage of being able to own golf equipment and maintain a club membership where dad takes his hacks at the golf balls and loses them in the rough regularly. There are special clothes to wear at the country club and a number of golf accessories to buy, such as golf shoes, jackets, golf bags, and carts to wheel the golf clubs from hole to hole. It’s not an easy game to master; it’s more associated with frustration, anger, and divot-digging missed shots where colorful language turns to a more vulgar type of cursing at the unfairness of life on the fairways and five-putt greens.

Duffers the world over use to cringe at the under-par scores of their heroes like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player back in the 1960s when golfers tossed their cigarettes on the green while they putted out. Overall health wasn’t stressed in those days, in fact the cigarette companies were major sponsors and golf professionals could pick up some advertisement money by pitching a favorite brand of cancer stick that makes them play better. Tournament money was an attraction to lure some golfers into the gym to get the edge on the competition but there are still some top golfers who are out of shape and overweight. A good swing is a good swing and the rest is gravy.

Tiger Woods was ready to mop up all the gravy by being in tremendous shape; he can also play a better game asleep than most of us can while awake. A score for eighteen holes from Tiger is lower than the average person’s score for nine holes. Not surprisingly, Woods had appeared on national TV before the age of three where he putted against Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas show. He was raised in Cypress California and scored a 48 over nine holes at the Cypress Navy golf course, also before the age of three. Adults would be happy to have such a low score; many of us can’t break 100 over eighteen holes. At the age of fifteen in 1991, Tiger became the youngest ever junior champion and he was uniformly dynamic in his college and amateur career.

After his 1999 Memorial Tournament win on the pro tour he began the longest winning streak since 1974 and the following year he won three majors, nine PGA tour events, and he set or tied twenty-seven Tour records. He continued winning until Vijay Singh finally halted the streak and beat Tiger to become the number one ranked player in the world. The two traded the number one spot back and forth for a while but Woods prevailed over and over to become the highest money-winner in golfing history.

Tiger scored even better with the ladies; many of us envy the money and endorsements that come with super-stardom but it comes at a terrible cost to the essential bodily fluids when slinky cocktail waitresses keep seeking to sap your energy and pollute your purity of essence with their admiring lust. Being draped with beautiful women is just one of those sacrifices that a true professional like Tiger Woods takes onto himself; no doubt extra conditioning is needed to help him get through the exhausting nights that would slay the average man. However, life is tough getting out of the rough when word of his other record-setting activities gets back to the wife.