The return of Tiger Woods
Perhaps nothing had bestirred the sporting world in the last many years than the dramatic manner Tiger Woods returned to the top ranks of golf on Sunday the 14th. That day I became glued to my set watching the Masters, hoping for a miracle to happen. Though Tiger Woods was among the bunch competing towards […]
Perhaps nothing had bestirred the sporting world in the last many years than the dramatic manner Tiger Woods returned to the top ranks of golf on Sunday the 14th. That day I became glued to my set watching the Masters, hoping for a miracle to happen. Though Tiger Woods was among the bunch competing towards the close, not many gave him half the chance to make it at the end. I wasn’t much hopeful like many others watching the same match all over the world. But when at some critical juncture one of the leading contenders sent his shot to a tree which bounced off and headed to water, the excitement started building up.
Suddenly it was the name of Tiger Woods that was ringing all over. And when he made that final shot to clinch the title I was really ecstatic. But the pleasure wasn’t mine alone. It was shared by many lovers of golf particularly those that had followed the career of this golf icon who had been focussed in the last few years to getting back, after a career setback. A setback that had shut him off from the very top of the league where truly he belonged. Winning this tournament was Tiger Woods first major win in 11 years. Already this feat is being touted as the greatest sporting comebacks in history. But that is arguable, of course.
Nevertheless, I liken the dramatic manner Tiger Woods returned to the golfing top to the moment, in October 1974, Mohammed Ali the boxing icon defeated George Foreman, then the reigning World Heavyweight Champion, to reclaim the title. The title was yanked away from him in 1967 when he refused to be drafted into the US Armed Forces. His boxing licence was suspended for many years. And when the licence was restored, and he returned to the rings, he was a bit rusty and had a couple of defeats before he was set up to fight George Forman, in a bout that was fought in Kinshasa, Zaire. The fight that was dubbed, The Rumble in the Jungle, was said to be one of the greatest sporting event of the 20th Century. It was watched by a record estimated television audience of I billion viewers worldwide, making it the most-watched live television broadcast at the time. I must have been counted as part of that statistics, because I recall watching the gruelling match while resident in Kongo campus, ABU, Zaria where I was a fresher in the School of Business.
Not many people gave Mohammed Ali a chance because Foreman was then at the peak of his career. A brutal fighter who was reputed to have lately seen off equally brutal fighters, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, the two that had previously defeated Mohammed Ali on his route to return to boxing reckoning. Just like in this case of Tiger Wood, Mohammed Ali went all the way to give a good account of himself to defeat George Foreman by a technical knockout and reclaim the title of World Heavyweight Champion.
I must confess that the game of golf had never meant much to me before Tiger Wood busted on the scene in April 1997 to win his first major, the Masters, one of the four major championships in professional golf. He was the youngest, at the age of 21, to win the tournament but the attraction for us in this part of the world was the fact that Tiger Woods was first black to win that important cup. Two months later, he was also said to have set the record for the fastest ascent to the no 1 position in the official world golf ranking. He went on to win the PGA Championship in 1999, the US Open in 2000 and the following year. Winning just became routine to him, taking all the major championships and garnering laurels all the way.
He became to many of us a symbol worthy of emulation. Tiger Woods made the game of golf look less elitist while expanding its field of popularity. Even those who did not play it at the time picked interest in watching it on TV. I did not pick up the game of golf until when in 2003 I was posted to Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru to act as Secretary/Director of Admin. The National Institute was then a haven for golf players. When I reported to Kuru, the National Institute was still mourning the sudden death in 2002 of its much-loved Director-General, Major-General Joseph Garba, a one-time Nigeria’s Foreign Minister in the 1970s, and later in the 80s, Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
One thing staff and participants in the Institute remembered the late DG was his fervent love for golf. His everyday life revolved around the office and golf. The General had even constructed a one-hole golf course a few steps from the administrative building adjacent to the main gate for all to tee off at will. But Jos itself is Nigeria’s home of golf, as the Rayfield course built in 1913 would probably be the oldest in the country, older than the one built in Kaduna in 1921 and Ikoyi in 1938. Coincidentally General M C Osahor, whom I met in Kuru as successor to Joseph Garba, is another golf enthusiast and he gave orders to the staff to help guide me pick up the game. I did, and played a lot particularly at the picturesque grounds of Rayfield and the one-hole course in the National Institute.
Playing golf in that period inevitably got one to focus on the number one golfer of the time, Tiger Woods. It was exhilarating watching Tiger winning tournament after tournament. However, the winning streak floundered about 2008 when his career seemed to have unravelled and he just went downhill. He had some extramarital indiscretions and being the celebrity he was, the media made a mountain out of the affairs, left him with no breathing space, with lurid stories of his frolics highlighted here and there. This must have caused him endless stress. To worsen matters for Tiger Woods, he was beset with elbow, knee and back problems requiring rounds of surgeries over the next many years. Obviously all these had impact on his performance, his ranking and earnings.
Many even began to worry about his mental stability when he fired his long time caddie in 2011. His performance still continued to deteriorate until his ranking fell to an abysmal low. Somehow after that the spell on his performance seemed to lift away and he started to improve. It was a slow journey for Tiger Woods to come up again. There was one set back or the other. At a time due to the surgeries Tiger missed all the four majors and hardly played any golf in 2017. But by the end of that year, his performance at the Hero World Challenge in Bahamas was sufficient to give notice to the golfing world that the tiger is back.
Welcome Tiger.