Two Fourth Place Finishes – Two Different Tigers

Those of you who have privileged me enough to read the Hat Trick regularly know that there are three sports primarily covered in this fine piece of…blog: football, basketball, and baseball. If you are the average American sports fan, one or more of these three sports (especially football) are most likely to be at the top of the list of your sports of interest. Of course, that would not necessarily limit your interests to those sports.

If you are like me, you like to play a little golf every now and then. Hopefully, you do not play golf like me playing golf, otherwise your average score would only be impressive in a box score from the NBA. Regardless, if you like to play golf, you probably enjoy watching at least a little golf. If you do, whether you love him or hate him, Tiger Woods probably has your attention when he plays.

I am neither a golf aficionado nor expert, but I enjoy the sport and I particularly enjoy watching Tiger Woods. Last year, Woods finished in fourth place at The Masters. Yesterday, Woods finished in fourth place at The Masters. On paper, the result was the same. If you viewed the match similarly to me, you saw two very different performances by Tiger Woods.

Tiger came up a little short in his short game, but Tiger was wagging the tail and not the other way around in the 2011 Masters.

In 2010, I observed a Tiger Woods who remained within striking distance of the lead, but never truly struck fear into anyone atop the leaderboard. I observed a Tiger Woods coping with the utter (self) destruction of his family life, on the brink of a divorce from his wife, Elin. I observed a Tiger Woods who had been inactive for months. I observed a Tiger Woods who did not appear to be enjoying the game of golf, even when he had flashes of success in the match. I observed a shell of the Tiger Woods that the world knew prior to his car accident in Thanksgiving of 2009.

Yesterday, I observed a Tiger Woods who sat atop the leaderboard for a substantial portion of the final round of a major tournament. I observed a Tiger Woods who was excited about birdies and an eagle. I observed a Tiger Woods who could look in the mirror and say, “I could have won. It was within my grasp,” as opposed to the 2010 version, which appeared to sort of hang around near the top, but never mounted a serious charge for the lead. For the first time this decade, I observed the real “Tiger Woods”.