Tiger Woods car/life crash

I just don't know if tiger can regain that mental headspace he had before the life crash

Checking Player, he won a PGA at 43, so either I misread the article or their research is shoddy. So good point.

nicklaus won 3 majors in his 40s after not winning any tournaments for a little under two years fwiw; i have enough doubt that i wouldn't put money on tiger passing him (esp since i don't think i'd be getting great odds) but at the same time he's not david duval just yet, let's not be too quick to write him off.

Hogan won three at 41, O'Meara won two at 41, Trevino won at 45, Singh at 41, Kite at 43, Snead at 41. What the hell are those people talking about?

yeah who would've thought that information from lakeprofile.com might not have been totally accurate

Damn--I'm now starting to question their big "E Actually Equals MC-cubed" article from last month.

the thing about tiger that confuses everybody is that the "decline" is so closely tied to that kneee injury he had and his whole life meltdown--like if those hadn't happened it's v. hard to believe he would have had such a shit year+--there is an intrinsic belief that he can get back on track, but this season and next will have to have some signs of life in them.

btw i love tiger and will be rooting for his resurgence

I started a thread on that last year--trying to separate the personal meltdown from the physical problems from the fact that he was already showing signs of decline when he blew his first Sunday lead at a major to Yang Yong-eun. It's very complicated to parse them out. Throw in possible PED use and it's even more complicated.

yeah i remember that thread--it's a complicated question for sure.

i just wonder if he'll ever be able to get his fundamentals straight on a consistent basis

I kinda figure anybody on the tour has the physical skills necessary to win 100% of the time

well tiger's problems are not physical

technical, maybe mental

I mean the thing about golf is that to win you need to be incredibly consistent in performing the same actions hundreds of times over the course of the tournament, where your margin of error is probably less than 2%. getting back to that kind of mindset after his meltdown...

like that was what made tiger frightening before the crash - his maniacal day-in-day-out consistency. if he's ever able to put together that mental state again I have no doubt he'll be winning into his 40s and maybe even 50s.

There was a physical element involved--he won his last major hobbling around the course, then went in for knee surgery and time off afterwards. I don't know if that's still a lingering factor or not.

hah that kinda proves my point - he was in such a zone last time that he was able to win with bone-on-bone grinding in his knee. I don't think any current injury is enough to physically prevent him from winning, rather it's if he lets it influence his psyche, then that's another matter.

Here's the thread from last year:

Tiger: Why?

Sounds like you would have been a 100%-mental vote.

oh no doubt - the short game is where you win championships, and that's where physical issues matter least.

lol, actually I posted in that - search for 'dyao'

yeah that's the thing too - i appreciate appealing to history which tells us players rarely win into their 40s, but tiger is not like other players - his skills, his athleticism, his nerve, he's an anomaly and always will be xps

Found it--very consistent. (And right below you, someone quotes a long passage from Posnanski!)

Good point. Tiger rewrote what was possible for a golfer under 35, so history may not be a good guide for what he does after 35.

the single-minded focus on history & stats is probably my least favorite part of sports journalism (lol as if there were any good parts) - history predicts things until it doesn't.

I'd be completely fine with it if the guys appearing from nowhere didn't always seem like boring assholes!

Boring assholes are good at golf, whatcanyoudo? It's like motorsports in that regard. Also, boring assholes + attractive women, they seem made to go together in that world

clemenza; didn't Big Papi drop off very suddenly as well?

From what I could tell Tiger's short game was really bad, which seems to be a focus problem, but otherwise he looked awesome. When he was dominating though he wouldn't miss half as many putts and obviously it all added up in the end. The only real reason why I doubted Tiger was because Posnanski wrote some very convincing articles on why you should. I don't really like him but still kind of want him to pass Jack just for the story

Also, the convienience stores here now stock three different kinds of "Arnold Palmer" drinks, one of them has this drawing of a 40-ish Palmer chilling near a tree with his drink and his dog, golf clubs on the porch; I can't think of a more badass can

this cuts out the golf clubs but you get the picture

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lj911mxJHX1qz8k23o1_500.jpg

I've been trying to think of a baseball player near Tiger's level who lost it overnight, and I'm having a hard time--McGwire, sort of, with some obvious extenuating circumstances. Maybe CAD can come up with somebody. Overnight baseball collapses are usually just explainable in terms of age. And, obscured by all his other problems, age is something Tiger has to contend with--I don't think a lot of majors have been won past 40, and he's getting close.

― clemenza, Sunday, April 10, 2011 7:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Dale Murphy. Steve Blass. Steve Sax. Mark Wohlers. Chuck Knoblach.Rick Ankiel (in pitcher incarnation).

Woods has more majors than Nicklaus did at this age.

And I just wanted to put my two cents in about Day's wife: fantastic.

Ben Sheets?

yeah, aren't there pitchers who overnight suddenly can't hit the side of a barn door?

yeah, see Blass, Wholers and Ankiel above. Also Sax and Knoblauch's demises were attributable to their inability to throw the ball from second to first.

lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blass#Steve_Blass_Disease

this seems to happen a lot to closers (except Mo, for whatever reason, God I hate him)

Dale Murphy. Steve Blass. Steve Sax. Mark Wohlers. Chuck Knoblach.Rick Ankiel (in pitcher incarnation).

The operative words, though, were "near Tiger's level"--the only one of those guys where the description fits somewhat would be Murphy, and even that's a stretch. (Ditto Ortiz--and with him, PEDs again enter the picture.) There are probably countless numbers of lower-level players who lose it overnight.)

Name another guy in any sport, except for maybe Michael Jordan or Roger Federer or Babe Ruth, who were near Tiger's level. There are others, but your setting the bar kind of high there.

And guys in golf hit rough patches. Nicklaus went 11 years between Masters at one point. Woods had one off year. Let's not write obituaries yet.

Favre 2009/Favre 2010?

Hall of Fame level, then, which Murphy and Ortiz fall short of.

As I was arguing above, I'm on the fence with Tiger--even more so after yesterday.

Favre 2009/Favre 2010?

― frogbs, Monday, April 11, 2011 10:41 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

But he sucked from '07 - '09, then got rejuvenated in Minny. Plus he's nowhere near on Tiger's level.

I'm not a football fan, but from what I know of Favre, that's an acceptable parallel for me in terms of level.

But in terms of falling apart overnight, wouldn't any drastic changes with him simply be explained by age? A 40-year-old football player is much more past his expiry date than a 35-year-old golfer.

xp I dunno, like you said it's hard to really pick anyone in any sport who dominated like Tiger, maybe Federer, maybe Pedro, I don't know. But Favre's 07 was actually really good (would have been a serious MVP candidate if not for Tom Brady), and his 08 season was great until the injury. He also could have won the MVP in 09. He definitely had it until just recently.

Favre was terrible with the Jets in '08. I was at the last game against the Dolphins and he was booed out of the place.

The first 11 games he was playing well, and led them to an 8-3 record which was significant because they really did not have a whole lot of talent. For the last 5 games I thought it was revealed that he tore a rotator cuff or something and really should not have been playing, singlehandedly dogging the Jets season (even the one game they did win was only due to a monumental coaching blunder). I guess ultimately his Jets stint will be remembered for that, but when he was healthy he played at a pretty high level.

From what I could tell Tiger's short game was really bad, which seems to be a focus problem, but otherwise he looked awesome. When he was dominating though he wouldn't miss half as many putts and obviously it all added up in the end.

But the short game tells me everything (rightly or wrongly) about a golfer's frame of mind, a focus problem sounds lot more manageable and it isn't. And in the majors I've seen from Woods its been one terrible round, a couple of indifferent ones and then about a rounds worth of brilliant passages. He is incapable of that brand of ultra boring consistency that made such a dominant figure (of course its only a boring outcome but he is often electrifying).

So Mcilory did look like he could become the main obstacle to Woods getting over the 18 major line - you could see him establishing something that had a substance for a little while. And then we found out how it really was. The short game told. Felt awful for him, he's got his own line to cross now.

you didnt watch a lot of golf if you're characterizing the last 15 years of tigers career as "ultra-boring consistency"

He's saying the outcome was boring, not the play.

mcilroy's short game was not a problem - he didn't three-putt until like the 65th hole

tiger historically has had an incredible short game - aside from a couple of tough misses i wouldn't put the blame on this "loss" on his short game - he played well! he was keeping the ball in the fairway, was generally sticking it with his irons, he made some putts, he missed some putts - if he plays at anywhere near this level with any kind of consistency for the next 7 years or so passing jack will be easy as cake.