Tiger: Is there anything left to say?
IN: News | by Grant Dodd | 15 May 2008
Bing. There’s an e-mail in the in-box. Quickly, I note that it’s from Lord Fotheringham-Smythe AO, Chairman of iseekgolf. “Better see what his nibs wants.”
“My good man, that Tiger story went down a treat. The patrons of iseekgolf loved it. Flocked to it. We need more of that, more I say. Don’t let me down.”
Fair enough. The Lord is a powerful and influential man, sort of like the Mick Gatto of the golfing world. I’d be mad to ignore his edicts. The only problem is, I’m flat out of Tiger stories. All used up. I could of course, rehash something from my column in Golf Digest (oops, I’ve already done that) but the Lord tells me that iseekgolf readers are on a different plane to Golf Digest. They’re deeper, intellectual types.
So, I need to find something, a new angle. Bloody Tiger. He’s made this golf writing job impossible. He’s the only story in golf. Imagine a golfing world without him. It’s an ugly thought – the second most interesting golf story this year that didn’t involve Tiger was about John Daly signing some girls butt, or breast (or both). Thankfully, we can always rely on JD for some high quality copy, but do you see what we’re up against?
I need to go deep into the recesses of the mind. Man, it’s skinny pickings back there. I’ve already written about how his buffness rules, about how he is redefining greatness, about his awesome ball striking, his deadly putting, his mental precision, even his wife’s ability at table tennis. In any other walk of life I’d be arrested as a stalker.
But this is the lot of the modern golf writer. It’s a well known fact in the golf magazine world that a picture of Tiger on the cover sells more magazines. Full stop. As a result, guess who gets about two thirds of all covers during the year?
And its damn fortunate that he decides to do a complete swing overhaul every few years, because that’s manna from heaven for golf publications – at least six months of instructional articles, followed by six months of debate about whether he did the right thing. By that stage he has won at least 20 events, making the debate redundant, whereby we can go back to pontificating about whether he really is the greatest ever.
Thankfully, for this article I now see some light at the end of the tunnel. I have managed to recall the time at Royal Troon during the 1997 British Open where my locker was next to his, and all his fan mail spilled over in front of mine and made me look really popular. Now, I didn’t see or speak to him all week, nor do I know if he ever came into the locker room, but to me, that qualifies as a Tiger story, and legitimises this article as result.
Then I remember a rain delay at the Australian Open in 1996, when Martin Peterson wandered up to Tiger in the Australian Golf Club locker room with his 80-year-old putter (he actually used it) and got Tiger to have a practice stroke with it. See, I’m just warming up. This stuff is gold, gold I tell you.
I also heard via a friend whose friend caddied for someone who once played in a group with Tiger that he allegedly wore odd socks one day in 1988. That’s good enough for me, and it gets my word count over the line as well.
Great challenges often require great endeavour. Next month, a preview of Tiger’s campaign to be Secretary General of the UN.
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