| Monday, April 11, 2005 |
| TIGER SHOT! |
For most of you, watching golf on television ranks somewhere between voluntary dental surgery and removing thirty-year old wallpaper: just not worth the time. I, however, absolutely love it. I'll admit that it can get boring at times; some of my best Sunday afternoon naps have happened while the TV was tuned into golf, but it can also be extremely riveting. If you were watching yesterday afternoon you know exactly what I'm talking about.
The Masters Tournament, held every year in Augusta, Georgia, is the most beautiful venue in all of golf. It's absolutely gorgeous in April and since it's the only one of golf's four major tournaments that takes place on the same course every year you can memorize the layouts to the holes. So many great golf moments have happened there that every hole owns some sort of history.
Making it even more interesting was that Tiger Woods was in the lead going into the last round. Hard core golf fans dislike Tiger as much as redneck NASCAR fans hate Jeff Gordon, but he's my guy. Tiger and I were born on the exact same date: December 30, 1975. So whenever they talk about him breaking some new record at such and such an age, I know exactly how old he is. I've been charting his professional life against mine and I feel pretty sorry for him; I guess he'll never be able to live up to all I've accomplished. At least he has his money to console him.
On the sixteenth hole par 3, up only one stroke to Chris DiMarco [who had just hit a beautiful shot just ten feet from the pin], Tiger hits a horrible shot off the back of the green that lands on the edge of the second cut. Hitting a ball lying there, lying right on the edge of where the grass gets longer, is difficult for anyone. But to be clinging to a slim lead with just two holes to play in the biggest golf tournament of the year, the stress level doesn't get much higher. All the television commentators were spelling out gloom and doom for Tiger. They said he'd be lucky to get it even close. Tiger proceeds to hit the ball away from the hole and allow it to roll down the green ala something you'd do at a putt-putt course. HE SANK THE SHOT MAKING BIRDIE! If you watched any sports news in the past twenty-four hours, you were sure to see it. The coolest thing was it just hung on the lip of the cup for a second, teasing you on whether or not it would fall [giving The Nike Corporation some great advertisement when they zoomed in on the swoosh logo on the ball], and it just dropped in. Tiger proceeded to lose two strokes on the last two holes but came back to win in a playoff.
The drama was amazing. I think it just goes to show us that you don't need something incredibly fast-paced to make it dramatic. In our world of ever increasing technology and speed, we think it takes more and more to get people's attention. We keep calling for louder and larger, more bang for our buck, and go big or go home. I was enthralled yesterday by grown men walking around a park hitting a little white ball with sticks. Maybe it doesn't take as much as we think it does.
Or maybe I'm just a loser who loves watching golf. |
yet another musing of steve-o @ 8:08:00 AM  |
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