There once was a time where, for roughly 8-12 Sunday afternoons a year, my dad and I would sit in front of the television and watch Tiger Woods play golf.
Golf is a sport I find incredibly frustrating to play in person, and to be honest, boring to watch on television.
And yet, ever since the April weekend in 1997 when Tiger announced his presence to the world at Augusta, I have been unable to get enough of watching the Big Cat stalk the fairways.
He is a once in a lifetime type of figure. He made football fans jump up and pump their fist when he nailed a birdie putt because he played with the kind of fire and emotion that I had only ever known before in Michael Jordan or Michael Irvin... he made me want to pretend to hit holes in one just as much as I pretended to hit the game winning three or score the big touchdown.
Phil Mickelson was a nice dude, but give 14 year old me the choice between watching him play golf or going outside and playing football in the snow and it wasn't even a conversation.
Tiger was an event. He was greatness defined, the closest I would get to watching a Jordan in his
prime.
And then he fell.
The car crash. The women. The botched PR attempt. And the loss of his game.
Tiger Woods, the world's most marketable man, had become persona non-grata.
And it seemed to me like everyone was a little too happy to watch it.
I was graduated from college for about six months when the story broke. It was a story that I tried to ignore as much as possible, because the reality is that I pretty much knew what happened without having to hear what happened.
Tiger got married too young and didn't deal well with temptation.
Tiger made some bad choices. Choices I would like to think I would not put myself in position to make but in a way can understand. And so I didn't give up. Neither did my dad.
It is weird to think about, because looking back now my dad and I spent so much time together watching a golfer who was, it turns out, an AWFUL family man. The type of dad you tell your kids NOT to be like.
But he was still our guy. We never gave up on him. It just didn't feel right without him. Not The Masters. Not The U.S. Open. None of it.
So, much like we do with seemingly all of our teams right now (I see you Orioles / Dolphins / Hurricanes), my dad and I suffered through the lean years, waiting for the re-emergence.
And waited.
And waited.
We saw glimpses of the Old Tiger every now and then. Last year at the Masters, for about 9 holes, Tiger caught the course on fire again. He was drilling approach shot lasers and stalking the field (literally). The pack ahead of him on the leaderboard could hear him coming as the gallery exploded for every big make. He was pumping his fist. This was our guy.
And then, as so often has happened over these past three years, his putter failed him. It makes sense, given the emotional baggage he has carried, that the most mental part of the game would be his undoing.
Tiger kept wandering, trying and failing to find his game.
Until this weekend. At his favorite course, Bay Hill, Tiger vaulted to the top of the pack on Saturday and came in to Sunday with the lead.
The old Tiger did not lose on Sunday. His mere presence atop the leaderboard put so much pressure on the field that they crumbled around him. THIS would finally be a real test; was he back?
He answered immediately. Her smoked his first drive. He drilled approach shots. He hit ten straight greens in regulation to start.
The NBC broadcast team shared a great little nugget late in the telecast: Of the final 16 golfers to go off, Tiger was the only one under par on the brutal course.
That's right, folks: everyone else crumbled around him.
Our guy was back. The guy who we had spent so many afternoons on the couch cheering for, almost as hard as we would have a Hurricanes football game. The guy who, even when I was away at school, my dad and brother and I would exchange phone calls or text messages about seemingly every weekend as he chased down another win. Old Tiger. New Tiger. Who cares?
Hell, he was finally TIGER again, and that was good enough for me.
As the tournament drew to an end, you could see the swag returning. He was stalking the course like, well, a tiger.
Finally, there was only the 18th, and Tiger had a 5 stroke lead and his birdie putt. As he read the green, the cameras caught Tiger cupping his hands to the visor of his ballcap, as he often does.
And then, in an act that was perhaps the death of hard times and the rebirth of the most dominant athlete of a generation, Tiger looked away from the ball and smiled.
I would be lying if I said it didn't get a little dusty in Casa de Bro.
He rolled his birdie putt to within a couple feet. He tapped in the par for the official win.
I texted my dad and brother as I sat there uncontrollably smiling.
My dad texted me back "for Tiger and for all those who never lost faith."
I'll drink to that.
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