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 Even Tiger Woods has proven it's not always possible for performance to match expectations (COURTESY: Centry Club of San Diego). But while driving one recent afternoon, I heard no fewer than four sports talk hosts, all on different channels, debate the demise of Tiger Woods. He doesn’t look focused, they said. His kids must be keeping him up at night. He looks frustrated. He can’t possibly be practicing enough with all the commitments of family life. The debate continued when I got home and turned on SportsCenter. Woods can’t putt anymore. He can’t pull off shots under pressure. He’s getting older and his nerves aren’t the same. All this criticism came after Woods struggled with putting in finishing second at both the PGA Championship and The Barclays in August. Consider this little nugget of information: Golf is hard, but Woods, who won the BMW Championship in September for his sixth victory of the season, has made it look easy for a long time. We’re talking about moving a little white ball hundreds of yards over terrain with all kinds of obstacles in our path. We’re trying to move that sphere to precise locations with a mass of metal attached to the end of a shaft that bends and flexes as it moves at upwards of 100 mph. What part of this sounds easy? Did I mention that the wind might be blowing, the sun might be glaring and our mind might be racing with horrible thoughts of where the ball might come to rest? I recently played 100 holes in three days with some friends on a stunning golf course in Michigan. Everything about it was awesome, except my ability to get the ball in the hole. As drives flew off line at inopportune times, chips stopped short and every putt seemed to burn the edge of the cup, I grew frustrated. Never mind that I hadn’t practiced or that I was playing an unfamiliar, challenging course. I was ready to pull the plug on golf. There was an expectation in my head that was keeping me from enjoying the game. It’s the same expectation that leads knuckleheads on radio stations to proclaim that Woods is done. Golf is a game where you can flush a shot only to watch it fly over the flag, off the green and into a footprint in a bunker. It’s a game where a perfectly rolled putt can skim the edge of the hole. It’s a game where little old ladies can record a dozen holes in one while a scratch player can still be looking for his first. The game is hard, but we always think we’re better than our performance. I’d like to think we could stop this nonsense and enjoy the game, but I doubt our egos will let us. |
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