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When we had dinner a couple of Saturdays ago at the house of my neighbor Andre Borromeo, I posed this question to a group of Cebu’s top golfers. There was Atty. Jovi Neri, Marko Sarmiento and Bayani Garcia. All are former club champions of the Cebu Country Club.
Can Tiger Woods win another major?
The response was easy: Yes.
These diehard TW fans reminded me of his 2018 Tour Championship win. They were confident, despite knowing that Eldrick Tont Woods was already 43 years old, that Tiger would win someday.
Will “someday” be Sunday? As you read this, the third round of golf’s most illlustrous tournament has concluded. I don’t know how Tiger performed on Saturday but for the first two rounds of The Masters, he was as good as anyone.
He shot a 2-under 70 last Thursday and a 4-under 68 last Friday for a 6-under scorecard midway through the event held in Augusta, Georgia. He’s just one shot behind the leaders.
Unfortunately for Tiger, the leaderboard is littered with a who’s-who of former major champions: Scott, Oosthuizen, Molinari, Jason Day and one of the hottest players today, Brooks Koepka, who has won three of the last six majors that he’s played.
But the golf stage this weekend belongs to Tiger. One incident highlighted the second round: After his approach shot on the 14th hole, Tiger was nearly mobbed by the crowd as a security guard sprinted towards Tiger and slipped, hitting Tiger’s right foot and nearly injuring the golfer.
Can you imagine if Tiger sprained his ankle and had to retire because of an injury? Another injury! But, no, Tiger’s shot landed 20 feet from the hole and he calmly putted it for birdie.
“Accidents happen,” Tiger said. “I’ve had galleries run over me, it’s just, you know, when you play in front of a lot of people, things happen.”
The security officer had a more amusing response: “Well, he made birdie, so I guess it all worked out. Man, I am really glad he made birdie.”
If Tiger’s lucky out-of-the-woods escape and good fortunes continue this weekend and he wins the 85th Masters, it will be one of sport’s greatest combacks.
Consider this: Tiger is 43 years old. Although Jack Nicklaus was 46 when he won The Masters exactly 33 years ago, very few 40-plus year-olds win major titles. The last time Tiger won a major was the 2008 US Open.
Injury after injury; scandal after scandal.. Tiger’s playing some of his best golf.
“If he wasn’t Tiger Woods and you didn’t know him, say he was a guy coming off the web.com Tour, you’d say: ‘This is a guy who is gonna win at any time,’” said Tommy Fleetwood. “So I wasn’t that surprised when he did but I think it’s an amazing comeback, from not being able to swing a club or even move. He showed at the Tour Championship that, once he gets it in play, he is the best iron player in the world. It’s sometimes easy to forget that he is the greatest golfer of all time, you just judge him as a competitor.”
Let’s hope Tiger’s someday is Sunday.
