General Admission
In a way, Tiger also won the 74th Masters
By Al S. Mendoza
(The guy in the mirror says, “Are you talkin’ to me?”
And I say, “Not really.”
“Why, you lookin’ at me like that?’” he says.
“I just wanna say, ‘Happy Birthday, Chap!’ That’s all.”
“Uh-oh.”)
* * * * *
TIGER Woods did not have to win the 74th Masters.
Just by being there, he’d done something big already.
First, for himself. Second, for golf.
Tiger is not just Tiger.
Tiger is golf.
Golf is Tiger.
Without Tiger, there is no golf.
Without golf, there is no Tiger.
In 1997, there was only $1 million to be won in golf.
In 2007, there was $270 million to be won in golf.
In 1997, there were only 9 golfers to have won at least $1 million each.
In 2007, there were at least 97 golfers to have won at least $10 million each.
Tiger Woods did all that golf renovation.
1997 was the year Tiger Woods turned pro.
When he won the Masters that year, golf turned from laid back to hip-hop.
When he won the Masters in 1997, he put an exclamation mark to it so emphatic it recalled the day Muhammad Ali upset Sonny Liston to win the world heavyweight crown in 1963.
Ali was only barely 21 at that time, was dismissed as the loud mouth, the trash-talking Louisville Lip from Kentucky.
When he knocked out the heavily-favored Liston, an ex-convict with a face that you’d dread seeing in an alley in the dead of night, he declared, “I Am The Greatest!”
Ali would proceed to transform boxing from boredom to science.
Tiger was also about Ali’s age when he crashed into the sporting scene.
But Tiger wasn’t just a 21-year-old accident when he won the 1997 Masters.
He was, like Ali, a veteran packed in a kid’s frame.
Tiger was a TNT, a hydrogen bomb. Napalm bomb even.
In winning the 1997 Masters in his debut as a pro, Tiger smashed all records, winning the world’s most prestigious event by a record 12 strokes.
His victory was a fluke?
Of course, not.
Like Ali knocking out Liston in their rematch – by a first-round knockout, mind you – Tiger went on to win three more Masters titles.
Crushing was his back-to-back Masters victories in 2001-2002, following it up with yet another win in 2005.
Tied with the legendary Arnold Palmer with four Masters crowns apiece, Tiger is just shy of two Masters titles to Jack Nicklaus’s 6.
Of course, Tiger came to the Masters this year wanting to win it again.
But, essentially, that was just an afterthought.
He came to Augusta National to seek solace from his fans.
He messed up, exposed as a serial wife-cheater in November that included bar strippers and a porn star.
He confessed to “a life of a lie” – and that was good.
I think with all that clapping and ovation at the Masters ending on Monday, Tiger got his wish.
Laudable already was his fourth-place finish behind champ Phil Mickelson, considering the stigma and trauma that he had to endure all week on the grandest stage of golf.
Bottom line, though, was the fans forgiving him – finally.
That was huge.
That was his trophy.
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