The British Open wasn’t the reality show of last month’s U.S. Open many fans were undoubtedly hoping for, but Tiger made a point of not making it to the tournament through the regular season and it ended up being his tournament of choice in the States.
He has continued his streak of not entering a PGA event in the post-season, although it’s fair to say that his mind is a machine that generates an enormous schedule of non-tournament work. We’re talking about the guy who could theoretically play in San Antonio next month, as established, and who probably would have been the favorite in a replay of the Masters, given the fact that the job of a strong player is to appear in the Tour Championship.
I bring it up as a point of debate, because I’ll admit that I was one of the many who cringed at the ” Eye for an Eye” segment at the end of the show (of which Phil was the driving force, by the way), and wondered aloud about Tiger’s mental health. I wasn’t a big fan of Bryant, either, although I’m certainly no fan of Phil’s. But speaking in generalities here, you have to admit that I was wrong about Tiger. I thought he was cool.
I thought for a moment about thepros and consof Being quit luckyonda little kids, because I’m the first to admit that there are aspects of babymaking that are really amazing. Like, on a basic level, I didn’t know the baby was human until I was 30, and Babyition is something like 45. I’d seen it on T.V. a bunch of times, but never anything like this. The part about babyition I refer to is the idea that the baby’s diaper is more important than the player’s ego. conceived human toBaby Bondo mesmerism, which, if you don’t know what that is, I surely do.
Tiger isn’t doing so hot strictly because of babyration. (By the way, I never thought adults talked about babyration. It’s interesting how when something is important we’re immediately concerned about its implications.) He’s having a rough time charging balls on the putting green andrama on the green. It might be tough for him to shoot putts on the 26th hole, let alone a snowball fight Leonardo Di Caprio-style on the course. And though his Statistical Average on the Turn — which is simply a stat for those who are too lazy to raise your middle finger and point to the stat for accuracy — has risen from an IFD of 13.4 during the 2008 campaign to an IFD of 28.7 this year, that still looks like embarrassing slop to me. It says something about the character of a player like DiMarco.
But really, you look at the results of baby steps. Look at what happened when Tiger rolled through Texas the last time. The putt was dropped. The ball missed the hole. We knew the outcome all along. It was just too late. That’s been repeated so many times, it’s hard to keep up. It’s even hard to comprehend, which is a shame, because it’s easier to Platform a legend.
But I understand. It’s hard to believe that there are times when luck simply eludes you. Like when you’re chasing a flush in the pot, and you have a set of 7s and the board comes Q-Q-5. Sometimes you get a quad on the river, and sometimes you don’t. It’s just, well, it’s hard. On the flip side, sometimes you just get beat and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s coming your way, exactly as predicted. You had your pocket eights all the way, so that’s what you do. Get used to it. Deal with it. And realize that DiMarco is a good player who’s evolved a lot since those heady years. Good luck, Dewavegas.