Tiger Woods has plenty of time to determine his legacy

Tiger Woods has plenty of time to determine his legacy

My wife said to me: What is the matter with everybody? Tiger knows better than anybody every single thing that he has lost and that he’ll never get back. But everybody feels like it’s their job to remind him. We all have problems. He’s in therapy. Good. Child prodigy. Driven parents. Act perfect. Never rebel. Live in a golf bubble. Black star, white sport. That’s not a great way to grow up. I hope he gets his game back. Then Nicklaus showed for the 25th anniversary and said much the same thing: “I feel bad for Tiger. I feel bad for his family. I feel bad that he Tiger May Still Deny His Private Life got himself in that position. I think that we’re taught to have forgiveness, and I wish him well. I hope he gets his game back. And I hope he comes back and plays well.” Yet it’s also Nicklaus who makes the persuasive case for why Woods should relax because he has many years to catch him. The ultra-long golf career is becoming more common. New equipment allows 300-yard drives for old-timers. Add better conditioning. Recent examples will inspire others — such as the near-misses in 2009 by Kenny Perry, then 48, at the Masters and Tom Watson, then 59, at the British Open. Nicklaus says “it’s silly” to think Vijay Singh, 48, or Fred Couples, 51, couldn’t contend here this week. First, Woods has time — and a great deal of it — on his side. Second, as he has made clearer than ever here this week, his radical changes are more necessity than obsession. An excellent analysis in Golf Digest of Woods’s four swings with four teachers, including his teenage swing, shows (to me, at least) that his 2000 Tiger Slam swing with Butch Harmon was probably the purest and best by far. Why ever change? He had to.