So, did you take the sucker bet?
Did you get all tingly and 1997-y and red-shirt-on-Sunday-ish and place a bet on Tiger Woods to win the Masters?
Ouch. After all, you should have remembered what P.T. Barnum — or was it Ben Hogan? — once said: There’s a sucker born every minute.
The notion that Woods, who hasn’t won the Masters since 2005, was the betting favorite in some circles was an emotional, not logical or reasonable, idea all the while.
And now, as the Masters weekend comes to a close, here we are, with Tiger Woods out of the tournament, after fighting like an MMA grappler just to make the cut on Friday.
He did make the cut. That’s the good news. And that’s, of course, what Tiger does. He’s maybe the greatest grinder the game has ever seen. Forget the 14 major championships for a moment. Consider a lesser-known, but nearly-as-impressive record: He made 142 consecutive cuts from 1998 to 2005.
The next closest, Byron Nelson, was at 113. Even the great Jack Nicklaus only made 105. No other player made 100. Tiger’s 142 is Jerry Rice-like.
So the fighter in him has never been questioned.
What is able to be questioned in 2018 is how effective he can be at regaining form to win a major.
His Thursday 73 and Friday 75 was good for a 4-over-par 148, which tied for 40th with gents like amateur Doug Ghim and 60-year-old Bernhard Langer. Worse, it was 13 strokes behind leader Patrick Reed, and 11 strokes behind the guy Tiger played next to for the first 36 holes, Australian Marc Leishman. Rory McIlroy was eight shots ahead. So was Jordan Spieth.
Put simply, Tiger’s long road back from four back surgeries, not to mention the embarrassments of his personal life in the past decade, finds him diving into the deep end of the PGA Tour swimming pool. All around him are players 15, 20 years younger; all around him are players who have spent years homing their craft without any scar tissue from prime-years Tiger; all around him are players who grew up inspired by Tiger, but now not afraid of Tiger.
So it was a fool’s errand to think that Tiger, playing in only his sixth event of 2018, can go win a major right now. There are too many requirements — accurate driving, precise short game, and perhaps most important, money putt after money putt after money putt —that he doesn’t have right now, at this stage in his comeback.
He may, with relentless work, and his intergalactic talents, climb the ladder to get closer as the summer goes on, maybe at the British Open at Carnoustie in July, or maybe at the PGA Championship at Bellerive in August. But every time he shows up, so will 24-year-old Justin Thomas and 24-year-old Jordan Spieth and 23-year-old Jon Rahm — not to mention 33-year-old Dustin Johnson and 28-year-old Rory McIlroy.
Make no mistake — golf is more fun with Tiger around. Way more fun. Way, way, way more fun. Heck, I was watching the gosh darn Valspar Championship a few weeks ago when Tiger was in the hunt, glued like it was the Ryder Cup. As someone tweeted, Tiger doesn’t move the needle. He is the needle.
And as he said with Tom Rinaldi after his round, six months ago he didn’t even know if he’d be playing competitively again. So the idea that he made the cut at the Masters is a noteworthy feat.
But he’s not ready to win majors. Not in this crowded field. Not with his still-imperfect game. And certainly not at Augusta National, 2018. But you knew that. That’s why you didn’t make the bet.
Right?
