A sporting Lazarus

Is Tiger better than Jack? This is perhaps one of the longest ever running sporting debates, and it probably remains unresolved for as long as Tiger Woods remains shy of the 18 major haul of Jack Nicklaus. Some folks, likelier to be closer in age to Jack’s generation, might concede that Woods has displayed a singular brilliance in his career, but have also been prone to insert pre-emptive caveats through the posing of sly questions. Such as, will Tiger be winning majors in his 40s? Now that one has been answered in his favour, the defences against Tiger’s case are left a little weaker.

Sunday’s win in Augusta was the first time Tiger Woods had come from behind on the final day to win one of golf’s majors, but that’s just a statistical quirk. He zoomed from behind for a lot of those PGA Tour and other wins over the years, when front runners palpably quaked as soon as Woods presented himself as a threat. A more interesting landmark moment is perhaps the first time he surrendered a winning position on the final day of a major. That happened in the PGA Championship in 2009, when he was overhauled by Y. E. Yang. It was a hitherto unrevealed competitive vulnerability. For me, it feels a bit crass to draw links here to a private life that was by this stage pretty dysfunctional. Woods had, after all, pulled off one of his greatest victories in the US Open a year earlier. But if his mental strength still remained largely intact at that stage, the onset of his physical problems were already plainly visible. He won that 2008 US Open in a playoff against Rocco Mediate practically on one leg.

Plenty of sportswriters and commentators have devoted significant chunks of their professional careers to trying to deconstruct and analyse Woods, to cataloguing the seminal moments, to charting the vicissitudes of his career. Some of this work has been very worthwhile, such as the 2016 ESPN article by Wright Thompson, and the biography last year by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. I have little desire to chip in with amateur psychoanalysis. I can only remember having one conversation in late 2009 when his personal life publicly fell apart. One of my interlocutors in that discussion knows golf. The other doesn’t, but has insights into human nature. We might not have been a representative sample, for we were unanimous in our sympathy, assuming he must have been deeply unhappy to have embroiled himself in such vast tawdriness that could never be kept contained in the long run. I’ll admit to a (probably male) bewilderment as to how all those plates could be kept spinning in the air while remaining a force on the golf course.

I make no apologies for retaining infinitely greater interest in Woods the golfer, Woods the competitor, Woods the winner. There are few people who have transcended their sport in the way he has. And last weekend, he did so all over again, immediately invited musings on whether his win in the Masters was the greatest comeback in sporting history. How does his return from personal and physical torment stand up against the comparably herculean efforts of Niki Lauda, Mario Lemieux, Lester Piggott, Monica Seles, Muhammad Ali and, from his own sport, Ben Hogan. This writer has had similar back problems to Tiger Woods, which also necessitated surgery, so I’m strongly inclined to advocate for him in this debate. One anecdote that stands out for me concerns how he had to walk up a flight of stairs backwards at an engagement once, because it was the only way he could make it up. A month before my surgery, I was leaving an event and was directed to the elevator by a kindly member of staff who saw me attempting to walk and thought it too cruel to have me try and negotiate my own way down the stairs. My empathy with Woods is strong here.

Like many, as I’ve spent the last year or so observing his golfing renaissance, I’ve been hoping that he could win a major again, while not being altogether confident that he would. His 2000 US Open win at Pebble Beach was akin to Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes, Usain Bolt’s sprint world records, Nadia Comaneci’s perfect tens at the 1976 Olympics, Bob Beamon’s world record long jump at the 1968 Olympics, Gary Sobers’ six sixes in an over, Marco Van Basten’s volley in the final of Euro 88, Shane Warne’s ball of the century – those accomplishments that represent the summits of sporting endeavour. Some of us therefore are old enough to have nostalgic reasons for wanting Woods to win again. Yet the aura of invincibility from the early 2000s is largely gone now. Several of the other players hit it longer than him, and they aren’t scarred from experience, mainly because they weren’t pros when he was the one lording it over the field.

It might ultimately be a spurious exercise to debate the merits of Woods vis-à-vischampions from other eras, and indeed other sports. However, one of the fascinating things about Sunday was the way it bore comparison to the final Masters victory of Jack Nicklaus in 1986, in that the game’s most distinguished elder statesman saw off the challenges of a good number of the great players of the succeeding generation. Where you had Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Kite and Nick Price vying to win in 1986, on Sunday last Dustin Johnson, Francesco Molinari, Brooks Koepka and Jason Day were among the many highly regarded contenders. In years to come it might not be seen as dramatic as Nicklaus’s surge, and the setbacks and near misses of his rivals in the closing holes on the final day in 1986. Apart from his splendid tee shot on 16, there weren’t many obvious thrills in Woods’s round. His was a reliable brilliance as Molinari surprisingly faltered and Koepka missed a few late birdie chances that could have brought him level. Yet it felt like a sporting occasion of enormous consequence, a victory achieved by a once in a lifetime talent.

 

Coda

On the topic of arguably pointless debates, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo had contrasting fortunes in the Champions League during the week. A growing view, with which this writer concurs, is that we should appreciate having had these footballers around at the same time rather than seeing their claims to greatness as being in competition. Though one might draw certain parallels between Tiger Woods and Ronaldo in the way they’ve evolved their games over time. One of the things that marks Ronaldo’s evolution is how he’s arrived at a greater conservation of effort, which has given rise to a stupendous goal scoring productivity. It has plainly enabled him to prolong his career at the highest echelons of the highest level. While Juventus appear to need rejuvenating after being cast aside by Ajax, there isn’t reason yet to think that he won’t have a few more credible tilts at the Champions League. As for Messi, this writer admittedly only saw a highlights collection of his performance for Barcelona against Manchester United. Yet it was enough to remind one not just of the unmatched library of touches and skills he has mastery of, but that it comes with an unerring ability to choose the right thing to do. The great players are always adept at making their own space, but this writer has not seen anyone else do so with such inventiveness and speed of thought.