Throwback Thursday: A Tiger Woods Reflection

When I saw the first Tweet that Tiger Woods was seriously injured in a one car accident, this blog post I'd written a few years ago came to mind. 

Originally published July 2015

While I was growing up my dad and Mr. Brown next door were big fans of the PGA, their heroes being Arnold Palmer (dad) and Jack Nicklaus. I myself liked the South African Gary Player, probably because he always wore black. Grandpa had been a fan of Sam Snead and upon retirement went and played golf about four times a week, loving the challenges of the game and the green expanse beneath open skies.

Today's fans of the game may not know Hank Haney, but you don't need more than a marginal relationship to golf to know who Tiger Woods is. Woods has been to golf what Michael Jordan was to basketball, Babe Ruth to baseball and Picasso to art: a transcendent, bigger-than-life public figure.

To get a sense of Tiger Woods' abilities you can begin by reading through this list of his achievements. For an even more incredible glimpse Google >Tiger Woods Ten Greatest Shots<.

The author Hank Haney, who was Tiger Woods' golf coach for six years, is considered by some to ge the world's best golf teacher. It was no accident Tiger invited him to be his coach. They had been crossing paths for years anyways, but there was a mutual respect here and the young superstar believed the veteran teacher could improve his already stellar swing.

The book then becomes the story of their relationship against the backdrop of the PGA. The stories reveal a complex superstar who has the weight of his fame to contend with as well as the challenges of trying to determine who he is and who he wants to me.

He has always been the greatest golfer at every level he ever played at. But what happens when all this fame starts to bore you? What if you have other interests? Tiger did have other interests. He loved war games and ultimately took steps toward being a Navy SEAL. And then there were his extramarital scandals.

In one story Haney shares how the National Enquirer acquired a compromising photo of the star, but rather than expose him "persuaded" him to do a cover story for one of its sister publications. Tiger was an exceedingly private person and would never have said yes to such a thing had he been requested to do so under normal circumstances. Haney was more than a little surprised when Tiger showed up on the cover of this publication.

The stories reveal as much about Haney as they do about Tiger. He shares his journey from player to pro to coach, how teaching eventually became his life.

One can't help the book was written in part to explain his side of the story why Tiger hasn't lived up to the greatness expected of him. If you return to the link above at the beginning of this blog post you'll see that Tiger hasn't won a major tournament since 2008. This is a significant lapse because up till then everyone who follows the game fully expected him to surpass Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 wins in major tournaments. The longer Tiger continues without such a notch the less likely he will ever achieve this feat.

The book may not be for everyone as it goes into acute detail regarding the mechanics of golf and the game. I myself listened to the audio version and have also been a hack golfer for fifty years (a couple rounds a year for most years and a little more than that as a teen) so I connected with the story and the painstaking details about the game.

Whether books like this should be written is another question. How public should we be about others' private lives? In some ways, however, I got the impression that Haney wrote the book as a man still trying to guide his pupil so that the champion could achieve the impossible mountaintop that lay ahead, and perhaps also as a love letter to someone he cared about immensely.

It's all part of the game.

* * *

Get well soon, Tiger. 

Hank Haney's The Big Miss Has Lessons for Golfers, Teachers and Life -- and Deep Insights About Tiger Woords

While I was growing up my dad and Mr. Brown next door were big fans of the PGA, their heroes being Arnold Palmer (dad) and Jack Nicklaus. I myself liked the South African Gary Player, probably because he always wore black. Grandpa had been a fan of Sam Snead and upon retirement went and played golf about four times a week, loving the challenges of the game and the green expanse beneath open skies.

Today's fans of the game may know Hank Haney, but you don't need more than a marginal relationship to golf to know who Tiger Woods is. Woods has been to golf what Michael Jordan was to basketball, Babe Ruth to baseball and Picasso to art: a transcendant, bigger-than-life public figure.

To get a sense of Tiger Woods' abilities you can begin by reading through this list of his achievements. For an even more incredible glimpse Google >Tiger Woods Ten Greatest Shots<.

The author Hank Haney, who was Tiger Woods' golf coach for six years, is considered by some to ge the world's best golf teacher. It was no accident Tiger invited him to be his coach. They had been crossing paths for years anyways, but there was a mutual respect here and the young superstar believed the veteran teacher could improve his already stellar swing.

The book then becomes the story of their relationship against the backdrop of the PGA. The stories reveal a complex superstar who has the weight of his fame to contend with as well as the challenges of trying to determine who he is and who he wants to me.

He has always been the greatest golfer at every level he ever played at. But what happens when all this fame starts to bore you? What if you have other interests? Tiger did have other interests. He loved war games and ultimately took steps toward being a Navy SEAL. And then there were his extramarital scandals.

In one story Haney shares how the National Enquirer acquired a compromising photo of the star, but rather than expose him "persuaded" him to do a cover story for one of its sister publications. Tiger was an exceedingly private person and would never have said yes to such a thing had he been requested to do so under normal circumstances. Haney was more than a little surprised when Tiger showed up on the cover of this publication.

The stories reveal as much about Haney as they do about Tiger. He shares his journey from player to pro to coach, how teaching eventually became his life.

One can't help the book was written in part to explain his side of the story why Tiger hasn't lived up to the greatness expected of him. If you return to the link above at the beginning of this blog post you'll see that Tiger hasn't won a major tournament since 2008. This is a significant lapse because up till then everyone who follows the game fully expected him to surpass Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 wins in major tournaments. The longer Tiger continues without such a notch the less likely he will ever achieve this feat.

The book may not be for everyone as it goes into acute detail regarding the mechanics of golf and the game. I myself listened to the audio version and have also been a hack golfer for fifty years (a couple rounds a year for most years and a little more than that as a teen) so I connected with the story and the painstaking details about the game.

Whether books like this should be written is another question. How public should we be about others' private lives? In some ways, however, I got the impression that Haney wrote the book as a man still trying to guide his pupil so that the champion could achieve the impossible mountaintop that lay ahead, and perhaps also as a love letter to someone he cared about immensely.

It's all part of the game.

Miracle on the 17th Green

This morning I head off to our annual corporate golf outing, once again at the 36 hole four star rated Nemadji Golf Club in Superior, WI. Corporate golf outings are a great way to introduce new people to the game of golf. At our company we form teams and have a scramble format it which everyone plays but not everyone has to carry the team.

The sport of golf is widely believed to have originated in Scotland. Being a MacGregor on me mother’s side thereby makes my attraction to the game a natural.

My dad liked to golf regularly and used to go back behind Stafford School in Maple Heights to practice hitting his irons. I have memories of Dad, my brother and I going to some remote road and running through the underbrush finding golf balls, filling brown paper lunch bags with them. I guess it must have been a particularly nasty hole at a Cleveland golf course where the initial shrubbery discouraged hackers from going deeper into the woods. But further in there was no brush at all and we scampered about like squirrels collecting nuts.

My Grandfather Sandy especially loved the game and played as much as he could after retirement, about four times a week I seem to recall. When I was about eleven he’d gotten a new set of clubs and gave me his old wooden shaft irons in a brown golf bag. He got quite angry with me when we were practicing once and I broke the shaft by duffing one, which I did on at least a couple of occasions.

Beginning at age 15 I spent two summers caddying at a NJ country club, courtesy Mr. McAvoy, a Bridgewater neighbor and likewise avid golfer. The chief benefit of caddying was that I could then go golfing every Monday for free, and golf we did. It was a wonderful experience.

Two years later I was invited to be a bus boy at Fiddler’s Elbow and got a real up close look at the country club culture from the inside. Here, too, we had the opportunity to play for free on Mondays, which I did now and again. The famed Bobby Thomson of the Giants, who hit the “shot heard round the world” to win the 1951 National League pennant, was a member there and I remember once standing in the doorway watching him slowly remove his shoes in the locker room after an 18 hole round.

All these memories come to mind as I prepare for my own round this morning.

A book recommendation comes to mind as well: Miracle on the 17th Green by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge. It’s a relatively fast read. If you like golf and have ever followed any facet of the PGA Tour (My dad was part of Arnie’s Army, I like Gary Player) you will enjoy this inside look at a great sport. It’s about a middle aged guy who is very good at golf who takes a midlife crisis type of stab at making the PGA Senior Tour.

I myself did not know who James Patterson was at the time I read this book years ago. My intro to Patterson was such a turn off because many of his bestsellers are of the gruesome type where imagination is applied in the sickest of ways to come up with new and creative macabre villains. I will admit that I wrote a few such stories myself when young, albeit poorly, but the very first chapter of one of his books was such a put off I have scrupulously avoided him, no matter how many bestsellers he writes.

On the other hand, I thought this review on Amazon.com pretty much summed up my take on the book which I hope you will one day read yourself… No murders, no serial killers. Just a lot of golf, and some fun. Sort of like today at Nemadji.

And congrats from afar to my brother Robert who got his first hole in one two weeks ago. Cherish the moment! I had a nice drive on one hole myself today.

Today's Top Stories

"I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one." ~ Mark Twain

It is one of my rituals to walk out to the road and bring in the morning paper at the start of each day. I like the walk, about three hundred feet, to our rural mailbox. I also enjoy reading the headlines on the way back toward the house.

It has to be tough being a newspaper editor. With so much happening in the world, how does one decide what will be the big stories of the day, and especially the big story that blares out above the fold. Here's what you see above the fold in today's Duluth News Tribune. And as a profession, newspaperfolk sure have to put up with a lot of guff.

Top banner above the masthead: Northland Golf Guide in fairly large letters with a close up photo of a golf ball on a tee and the head of a driver. More than 70 area courses and a look at how the economy is affecting the game is the subhead. For a lot of folks that might be enough to get a person to fork over a buck and a half.

The major feature has its headline split in two with a photo of grave markers filling a good section of the page in letterbox style aspect ratio. Above the photo: As bones of loved ones erode into the Nemadji River, the Fond du Lac tribe wonders... And below the photo, in largest font on the page: What will be done to respect their dead?

The right hand column has a box with a dotted line that contains two marketing messages. $88 IN COUPONS INSIDE and then "Where to find your TV today" with a blurb pointing out that the TV grid was inadvertently printed in the wrong place. Ooops.

The last news item above the fold is also in the right hand column. Sent in '67, letter finally gets an answer. LBJ was president, Penny Lane was at the top of the charts and Dragnet had just premiered. A form letter was sent from the Duluth city attorney's office to comparably sized cities seeking salary information for legal stenographers. Utica, New York answered this week.

The last front page story in today's paper declares, 100 days, trillions spent, Obama's success unclear. A closeup photo of President Obama has this caption: Has signed executive orders in 100 days than any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

The article, which came in through a syndicated feed from the McClatchy Newspapers, is essentially about how the economic crisis has given the president the opportunity to strengthen executive power. The headline, though, is curious to me. Obama's success unclear? Some of the laws being written into the books won't take effect for years, and the impact of all this legislation being rolled out at a dizzying pace may not be fully recognized for decades. In short, the phrase "Obama's success unclear" is a tautology.

One thing I do like about the Sunday paper, besides the comics, is the Opinion section. I especially like when they take an issue and present pro and con perspectives on an issue. Today's debate deals with the Aad Shrine Circus which is coming to town next weekend. Just plain fun or Just plain cruel is the headline.

A picture of smiling kids mounted atop a brightly decorated elephant fills much of the page. The kids sure are cute. It might be interesting to explore the ethics of circuses some time. Right now, I think I'll finish getting dressed so I can start my day.

What are today's headlines on your local paper? If you don't want to post just send an email. I'd be interested in hearing what's hot in your neck of the woods.