100th PGA Championship thread

I certainly don't think the young guys are intimidated but entering Sunday studs Fowler, Rahm, Day and Thomas were all tied or a shot ahead of Tiger and he dusted all of them. Not because they fell apart or anything. But it does show when he's making a run he can still track down the world's best, just not all of them Sunday.

I kind of look at this tourney like the 1991 US Open in tennis. Edberg beat Courier in the Finals. 73 people remember that. Who got the SI cover? Connors.

Tiger very well might never win again. Not a major, not a regular tourney. Steiny could put out a press release tomorrow announcing he had secret back surgery Sunday night and is out 15 months. But what's been awesome about this season is just how FUN it's been to watch. Here were the on-course highlights the past few years:
2014: -------
2015: He didn't have a chipping yips disaster at The Masters.
2016: -------
2017: -------

Also during this time, we saw things like him pathetically splashing balls in the water at a charity outing. And then the police video. And the very real possibility he was absolutely finished playing. This year?
--Sunday early run at the Honda with some highlight reel shots.
--Entire Valspar, including the putt on the 71st hole.
--Opening round at Bay Hill and early part of the 4th round.
--The 65 at the Players.
--Friday and Saturday at The Memorial.
--Sunday at Quicken Loans.
--Entire British Open.
--Entire PGA.

And just following it on TV and online added to it. The memes, the jokes, the GIFs of the stingers and the traj, the idea that people could again talk about things happening now and not 10 years ago.

And there's still the playoff events. I'd resigned myself to the fact that not only would he never win anything ever again but that he probably would retire after the last surgery. Instead he provided a season that has been more enjoyable than many during his prime (like 98, 03 and 04) and has also had more pure joy out of him than even some of his winning seasons, whether 2009 or even the comeback in 2013, when it still seemed like drudgery. If this is the best it'll ever be again, it'd be all right, simply because we finally, improbably, again saw him nearly at his best.

That said, damn it, I do want a major now.

 

Anybody on this thread plays golf. The fellowship and camaraderie are a huge part of the pleasure the game affords. I know the guys on tour are fanatical cutthroat competitors in a high-stakes professional sport, but there's still that element of golf even at that level, mixed in with the genuine appreciation pros in all sports have for the skills of their peers. Tiger denied himself any of that in his glory run. It was a distraction from his quest to be the best ever. I think once he really faced the possibility he couldn't play again, he started seeing his sport and thinking "hey, there were parts of golf I missed out on. I should give them a try."

 

I've been trying to put my finger on why we give so much of a damn about seeing Woods compete and challenge again - myself included. As much of a golf nerd as I am I never was a Tiger fan or frontrunner. One of my favorite golf moments was being on vacation at Myrtle Beach and screaming my ass off for Rich Beem to hold off Tiger at Hazeltine. I rooted like hell for Bob May in 2000 and Rocco in 2008 too. I knew enough people in golf media to know how surly and unapproachable he and "Steiny" were. Then you add in his father being a loon and his philandering that was followed up by the bullshit apology-"presser" on live TV. There wasn't much that was sincere about the guy.

Yet here we are. Here a bunch of us are. Watching and screaming at TVs in ways we never did 15 years ago. Why? I think part of Tiger's appeal is that he does have, and always will have, an "it" factor. He carries himself in a way that you expect something big to happen.

The other part of this is that Tiger in a lot of ways is representing the same thing he did 20 years ago: a mixed-race kid busting his way through a sport that once again is lily white. That was part of the appeal to Tiger in 1997: Here comes a black kid turning a sport of old, white dudes on its ear. And Fuzzy's comments at the Masters justified that for a lot of people, rightly or wrongly.

Fast forward two decades and here we are again. Justin Thomas seems like a perfectly fine young man, but he's the new Davis Love III - the son of a PGA pro who was the son of a PGA pro. Jordan Speith - learned to play at a country club. Yes, you have a couple black hats out there like Dustin Johnson and Reed, but the majority American players once again are falling into the mold of upper-middle class white guy (which brings about the cold, hard truth that the Tiger Boom never brought about the dearth of minority pros that were expected). Makes it easy to pick up cheering for him again for a lot of people.

Lastly, lots of people rooted for Woods 20 years ago because he was young, hip, cool and dominant. Now, I think a lot are pulling for him because he's older, balder, kinda' battered, been through some shit and...so have the rest of us his age.

 

The younger generation definitely isn't intimidated by Tiger Woods. Hell, he CREATED that generation. Mentally strong. Physically fit. Laser focus.

The impressive thing to me, now that he's healthy, is that Woods is still good enough on any given week to beat them. He hasn't yet. And maybe he won't. But he's still good enough.

I was a fan before Woods turned pro. I play golf. My dad played golf. My grandpa played golf. Dad was always a Palmer fan. Got to watch him in his prime and follow him for decades.

I guess you could say Woods and I "turned pro" the same year, though in different professions. Like my Dad, Woods was a guy who I could follow for decades.

From 2014 to the end of 2017, it looked like Woods would never play again. Injuries and self-inflicted wounds. Yeah, I don't doubt that he used to be (and maybe still is) a cold and sometimes crummy person in his personal life. But it sure looks like he has a fresh perspective and more joy in his life.

Now, it seems like he's got another 3-5 years of being a contender. That's fun.

 

Admittedly, I rooted for Tiger because after watching Player/Nicklaus/Palmer/Watson dominate, then going through Seve/Norman/Price I found the Trevinos, Seves and Chi Chis gone and yeah, lily white. He was quiet on the outside but you could tell with his swing and flash for greatness (the Amateur win at Sawgrass) that he was exciting.

Then to see him actually dominate? Greatness defined.

Now, its not so much the biracial element to me but the fact that there is a chance for his greatness to rise again, like Nicklaus in '86.

 

If he was a baseball player we'd be asking a lot of questions right now.

 

I caught that also.
That was right after the "You're getting fucked really hard tonight." kiss.

 

Good to see Tiger with a normal looking, appropriately aged girlfriend as opposed to a trophy model.

 

As far as Tiger goes......this can go way way back.
Was Jack or Player scared of Mr. Palmer?
No.
Was Watson, Trevino, Seve scared of Jack?
No.
Was Norman scared of Faldo? Yes. But Norman was a mental midget, so that doesnt count.
Was Els, Phil and Duval scared of Woods?
Youre damn straight they were.
With Woods, they saw prize money they never dreamed of. They knew, (and still know) that you don't spit in the eye of the Golden Rooster. They were smart enough to stay in that their lanes and keep collecting checks, while Woods was busy collecting trophies.

 

That's nuts.

It's the only sport where most of the time you don't even fucking SEE your opponent. And yet you're supposedly not hitting your best shots because you hear some crowd roar from 500 yards away --- on Friday or Saturday, no less, because it sure as hell didn't affect anybody on Sunday.