Jottings - Slice of life - 288 ( Champions are forever — the return of Tiger Woods)

Jottings - Slice of life - 288 ( Champions are forever — the return of Tiger Woods)

(Note to my readers: This essay is dedicated to my friend and colleague Vijay Shriram, who casually mentioned to me a few days ago that I should write about Tiger Woods, after his historic win in the Augusta Masters last week. Though I have been following Tiger woods incredible sporting journey for decades and sympathized with his personal life and fall from grace, I have never been a great enthusiast of the sport itself. A few years ago, I read Steven Pressfield's magnificent novel "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and was intrigued by his constant references to the Bhagavad Gita's exhortation that one must immerse oneself in action without yearning for the results. The caddie Bagger Vance speaks to his master (Junah) almost in the same language and cadence as Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. This book opened my eyes to the artistry of Golfing, and since then I have understood and appreciated the game better. I now see what can go through a Golfer's mind, when he stands with his club all alone on the golfing turf with a small white ball at his feet.

I conceived this essay during my drive back from office to home. I had to check a few facts, but beyond that, this piece was written as it emerged and took shape during my fifteen-minute ride. Thanks, Vijay for sowing the seed.)

Every sport has its mecca, and every sportsman aspires to perform at their sublime best on that hallowed ground. All other successes of a professional sportsman will pale in comparison, and a true champion will consider his sporting journey incomplete if that pilgrimage is not made, and victory not registered on that sacred spot. For tennis, it is the lush green lawns of the Wimbledon center court, for cricket, its the Oval grounds in London, for Baseball its Wrigley stadium in the Chicago, for Cycling its rugged and strenuous Tour de France cutting through the Pyrenees and Alps, for Athletics, it could be any of the Olympic venues , and for Golf there is no better theater in the world than the tough, alluring and ever-changing turf at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. For more than hundred years, the Augusta Masters ( or simply called the Masters) tournament has remained “the” title to win for a professional golfer. With all the sanctified traditions of the game held in trembling reverence there, and only the choicest players of the game extended an invitation to participate in the tournament, winning the Masters is the ultimate consummation of a Golfers existence and professional pride. To win the Master’s once is achievement enough, but to win it more than once is greatness in the sport bequeathed only to blessed few.

In the week of April 1997, the Augusta Masters witnessed something unique. A black young man, tall and focussed without seeming preoccupied, with eyes that gleamed with purpose, and face that bespoke supreme confidence, was making quite a mark on the turf. Golf has historically been a white man’s game, and Woods looked poised to break that pattern. Tiger Woods was playing in his first Masters tournament. He had come into Augusta Masters with a reputation as a young player who was deemed a natural — whatever that word means. However, the truth is Woods was playing the game since he was two years old. His Father, Earl Wood, a golfer himself and baseball player, spotted the little boy’s eyes light up when someone hit the golf ball. When Earl passed the club to young Woods for the first time at an age when kids cannot hold a toy securely in their hands, Woods held the gold club with a perfect grip in his nimble hands without any instructions. Then and there, Earl realized that his son had a special gift. Just as Williams sisters in tennis had their Father’s ambition backing their own prodigious talent, In Woods case, both Earl and his wife Tida resolved that they would sacrifice anything to make their young son the best player the game has ever seen. True to their resolve, Earl taught Woods the rudiments of the sport and became his official coach. By five Tiger Woods would swing the club with the expertise of a professional golfer, and by ten he was already the junior champion. Earl knew Tiger had come of age, when his young son, eleven years old, beat him on the golf course by more than 10 shots with effortless ease. Since then Earl has never won a golfing round against Tiger. Woods turned professional in 1996, at an incredible age of twenty, and within the same year amassed three professional championships - a unique achievement in itself. Coming into the Masters in 1997, he was not even in the reckoning for the last stages of the tournament, let alone winning it. But, as the game progressed, and thousands of spectators clad in golfing whites watched him play, they realized that something magical was unfolding on the course. Lay fans and stentorian critics stood transfixed at Wood’s “perfect swing”. A ram rod straight back that tilted and curved ever so slightly, the grip on the leather firm and resolute, the steady arms, the perfect arc of the club that did not quiver either in its descent or the ascent, the totality of the swing from start to finish that could have put a pendulum to shame for the sheer geometry of its trajectory, and the resounding impact of the club hitting the ball, sending it spiraling across its orbit for yards; and when the shot stood completed, the effortless body balance of Tiger woods as he stood nonchalantly tracing the flight of the ball to the desired hole - all of it was simply poetry and precision in motion. Woods won the 1997 Masters by twelve shots, beating the record of the other great champion Jack Nicklaus by nine shots set in 1965. The era of Tiger woods had begun.

In the next 13 years, Woods would establish a reign of an undisputed champion by winning thirteen major championships, and six professional titles and a Grand slam in between ( winning for major Golfing titles). He was in that zone of invincibility during those years. Years of grueling training under the tutelage of his father had perfected his swing, toned his body, and he was — so it seemed to those who watched him play - the perfect physical organism to have ever picked up the golfing club. Tiger’s ability to hit the ball 40 yards longer than most of his competitors, and to hit the ball with eerie accuracy each time, lifted the game to newer levels of excellence. Just as a Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal or Steffi Graf transformed the game of tennis, Tiger’s technique and quality of golfing shots became the creed for younger players who got into the sport after him. Not many, however, know that to reach this level of excellence Woods displayed at the Masters in 1997, fifteen years of hard work and practice proceeded it. The common fallacy we entertain about great artists or sportsmen is that they are born great, and what they achieve in their area is something they are born to do. Nothing can be further to the truth. Yes, some people are born with a certain propensity, an inclination towards a specific sport or art; but rarely would you find such innate talent exploding into full-blown talent, unless there is adequate tutoring and committed practice. Earl - Wood, Tiger’s father, would make young Woods watch Golf swings for hours in his garage, and later on, Tiger himself would spend hours each day, alone, perfecting his swing. By the time, Woods was ready for the professional arena, he had reworked and reprogrammed his technique twice, chipped away at his weaknesses, until that weakness became his very strengths. Geoffrey Colvin, in his best selling book “Talent is overrated” makes his case on how champions ( including tiger woods) and great artists practice incessantly and obsessively, not on their strengths, but more on their weaknesses. The popular notion of mastering a technique is to work on one's strength, but that is not how champions think. Whats distinguishes a champion from a mediocre practitioner is that champions realize that their weaknesses have to be converted them into strength, and work on it feverishly and persistently. Tennis enthusiasts will remember that when Steffi Graf started her professional career, she possessed an ineffective and almost amateurish backhand. Her strength was the ominous forehand that could score winners to all parts of the court. But as she progressed in her career, one could see that her backhand was becoming stronger and a perfect fiddle to her power play. Hours of grueling and lonely practice to strengthen her backhand goes unnoticed in the popular imagination. But that is the secret of her success. The key idea is that what comes naturally to someone, needs minimal practice to retain and nurture, but what doesn’t, requires tremendous practice and dedicated effort. That is what champions like Tiger woods are good at doing. Alone, without the eyes of the world prying on them, they practice and practice hard on areas that need improvement. So when they come out to play, it all seems so effortless. This is an important life-lesson.

Golf in many ways is a different ball game from others. Here, one does not compete with opponents to wear them down as they do in tennis or football. The goal of golf is to hit the ball into a hole with a minimal number of shots. And to do that with every shot the golfer attempts to find that perfect swing and pace that can get the white ball as close as possible to the hole. The shots of the opponent do not affect one's score. Winning or losing a game of golf depends on how many strokes an individual player takes to reach the goal. In this respect, Golf is a lonely game. We compete only against ourselves. Standing in the golf course alone, with thousands of eyes watching from the sidelines, the golfer has to synchronize his mind and body into one being. And before the club hits the ball, the player has to gauge the lay of the turf, assess the spatial coordinates of the distance the ball has to travel, factor in the vagaries of weather, adjust to the velocity, direction and flow of wind ; and , all of this needs to be done in those brief moments when the golfer steadies himself at the tee and prepares his swing. In his brilliant novel “The Legend of Bagger Vance”, a novel about Golfing (which was adapted into a movie starring Will Smith) Steven Pressfield, the author, beautifully summarizes the art of golfing. He writes: “ Each one possesses, inside ourselves, one true Authentic swing that is our alone… Our task as golfers is simply to chip away all that is unauthentic, allowing our authentic swing to emerge in its purity..” It is the unanimous opinion of senior players, critiques, and admirers of the game of golf, that Tiger woods had found that authentic swing, and when he strode the golf courses across the world, he didn’t compete, but simply let-go and allowed the inner swing to take over. During the period between 1997 and 2008, his golden period, Woods could hit the golf ball on any course with a precision that was unbelievable as it was incredible. It seemed as though Woods was drawing upon some force deeper than mere Golfing technique.

We often want our champions to be flawless. But we forget they are human too. The year 2008 marks a turning point in Wood’s career. News of his infidelity and subsequent ugly divorce broke the pristine reputation of Tiger Woods in the minds of the people. The prodigy, the genius and well-behaved champion of Golf had erred - at least, that was the verdict of the tabloids, critics and fans. After the US Open victory in 2008, against the backdrop of deepening personal accusations, Woods succumbed to the pressure and lost his Midas touch on the golf course. The “authentic swing” became more belabored, conscious and began to waver. Fans watched him struggle to get the ball anywhere near a hole. It was as though — as one writer in the Newyorker magazine observed - Nijinsky, the great Russian ballet dancer had forgotten how to pirouette on his toes. Woods finished last in most of the tournaments he played. After years of working and pushing his strong spine to his advantage, his back started plaguing him. Four surgeries in quick succession further aggravated the poor form he was in. By 2015, the world of golf had almost forgotten the legend of Tiger Woods. He was just one more player on the field.

But great champions are never truly out, they raise the bar for themselves and for generations to come. When Roger Bannister broke the four-mile barrier, or Carl Lewis the 10 secs threshold, those were landmark moments in the history of Man’s physical abilities. In the same vein, when Tiger Woods won the 2019 Augusta Masters last week, and for the fourth time in his career, he pushed the bar for those who believed it is impossible for a former champion to make a comeback in Golf after a hiatus of ten years. And to win the Masters, the most prestigious and grueling of all of the championships, is the ultimate message to the golfing world, that the hero is firmly back. To understand the significance of Tiger wood’s achievement is not easy. Sporting is an unforgiving field. Age, athleticism, rhythm all of them diminish over time. Even the best of sportsmen have a window of performance beyond which their abilities begin to take a downward swing. And once an athlete has reached a peak, remained there for some time, the slide is bound to happen. A sensible champion will know when to quit, or at least when to stop playing at the highest levels. If that distress signal is ignored, then infamy awaits the deluded sportsman on the field sooner or later. In the last ten years, the game of golf has radically changed. The level of the game has increased. In such a milieu, for Tiger Woods to make a comeback and find his “authentic swing” once again is almost an impossible dream made true only by sheer grit, talent, and more importantly the passion to play the game. The history of sports and athletic have seen some remarkable comebacks in the past, and this win of Woods’s in the Masters will rank among the top. Woods is forty-three years now, not too old by golfing standards, and still has many more years of active golfing left. If this win is anything to go by, then the world will witness a second round of golfing excellence from this prodigy. His personal turmoils are buried, and what we see is a rejuvenated and self-assured Tiger woods - a mirror image of his former self. The stride is back, and so is the magical swing and the accuracy of the shot.

Over the last few days, there have been numerous tributes to Woods on his magnificent achievement. Barack Obama tweeted just after the win praising woods for his grit and determination despite the highs and lows; but the best tweet was by Magic Johnson, the great basketball star. He wrote, “ The roar of the tiger is back”. Yes, it is, and this time, we hope the roar will be heard for a long time to come.

God bless…

yours in mortality,

Bala