Along with introducing non-golfers to the term “hit-and-giggle,” Tiger Woods this past week also gave a lesson about the demands of competitive golf at the highest levels.
The perception has been trimmed back quite a bit over the years, but in some quarters it still remains — “Must be nice, go play golf for four days and get paid big bucks to do it.”
As it is with all other big-league sports (and artistic entertainment, for that matter), we don’t see all the hours and effort it takes to be at that high of a level when the bell rings.
Why did Dustin Johnson make 91.4% of his 5-foot putts last season? Why did Justin Thomas convert 85.7% of his up-and-downs from greenside bunkers?
It’s not happenstance.
Hours upon hours of practice, day after day after day, is what it takes to know the 5-foot putt will drop under pressure, or the tee shot will split the fairway on the 72nd hole.
There’s a certain amount of physical ability and resilience needed to do that. No, not all pro golfers look like “athletes” in that sense, but like baseball — another game where hand-eye genius is honed through endless repetition — the physical demands are narrow enough to allow various body types.
But the demands are necessary for success. Your buddy, the 3-handicap hotshot, might be able to step out of his Buick on Saturday morning and deliver a “hit-and-giggle” 75 with the guys, but it’s as far as he’s going as a once or twice-a-week golfer.
That’s what Woods was referencing when discussing his future — or lack thereof — in competitive golf. Will he reach a point where he can walk 18 holes without enough discomfort to wish he hadn’t? Let’s say he will. Do it again tomorrow, and two more days after that? Again, let’s go positive and assume so.
He did, of course, announce that he’ll tee it up alongside his 12-year-old son, Charlie, next week in the 2021 PNC Championship. The father-son event to be held at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Dec. 16-19, had been holding a spot for Woods and his son, who stole the show at the 2020 event.
But will he be able to put in the hours and days and weeks of prep it takes to visit a leaderboard in PGA Tour play?
In discussing that, he introduced (for some) or reintroduced (for others) the legend of Ben Hogan, who some 70 years ago recovered enough from his own horrendous car crash to become the world’s best golfer — though on a very limited basis due to badly damaged legs.
“Mr. Hogan,” as Woods called him this week, proving the enduring esteem, won six of his nine majors after his 1949 accident. That includes all three he entered in 1953 — his legs couldn’t endure the PGA Championship, which until 1958 was match-play and, to win, he’d have to play six straight days (not counting pre-tournament practice rounds).
Woods and Sam Snead are tied for all-time PGA Tour wins with 82 apiece. Hogan finished with 64, and if not forced into spot duty at age 36, he might’ve approached 100 wins and at least a few more majors (his eventual putting yips didn’t help, either).
Hogan soaked his legs, iced his legs, taped his legs, and endured to do what he was destined to do: Swing that spotless swing, over and over and over again, and win at the highest level.
Hogan famously honed his game and his swing became such a mechanical certainty, he might’ve been the only golfer in history who could’ve done what he did.
Might’ve been.
Woods, known for many things contributing to his years of brilliance, has also been a master craftsman, having fine-tuned all aspects of his game to where, at his best, there was no weak spot. Hogan and Snead couldn’t putt. Neither could Arnie once he neared 40. Jack was pedestrian with the wedge. Phil often can’t find a fairway at crucial times.
Woods’ driver and putter aren’t what they were in his prime, but as the 2019 Masters showed, on a given week they’re good enough. Everything between those two clubs seemed to still be upper-tier through 2019.
He’s smartly not setting any hard goals or timetables, and smartly setting a low bar for his future in competitive golf. He knows what it’ll take and that he might not be able to get there.
Inside, however, he knows there’s at least one precedent and perhaps a chance, as he put it, to climb one more Everest.
But looking back at the 2019 Masters and recalling his emotional reaction, as well as the videos of him hobbling a few days later, you wonder if that was it, his last Everest, and maybe he knew it. Afterward, he admitted to the physical toll it took to perform that week. And that was before spinal fusion, which was before the mangled leg.
He’d never admitted to such a thing before, but then again, he’d never been that old and worn before.
Oh, jeez, almost forgot. Before leaving, let’s not overlook a crucial aspect of Woods’ hope to reach part-time or occasional status as a professional golfer.
He recovered quite a few endorsement deals during his comeback from physical and personal ordeals. Those deals must be largely contingent on him competing and not just hitting and giggling with his Jupiter gang at Medalist.
When personal desires are paired with business needs, big things can happen. We’ll see what happens when he tees it up with his son in Orlando.
That’s the important first step.
Reach Ken Willis of the Daytona Beach News-Journal at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com