Arena Return of the Tiger

actually, yes it does matter. many of those were things that he normally doesn't do if he's not rusty. and he was OBVIOUSLY rusty. i'm really happy for phil, extremely, but woods is going to win more. and i get the feeling it's going to be a lot more in just this year alone. let him get back in the swing of things where he's not missing a freaking three foot birdie put and turning it into a bogey and we'll see the dominant woods from before this entire mess started.

that's why it matters.

 

If that had happened and if Phil sinks his eagle putt on 13 then there would have been a playoff, and maybe during that playoff my grandma would have beat up your grandma on the 18th green.

 

So you're saying if Tiger is playing at his best he's a good chance to win major tournaments?

You should work for ESPN.

 

no... what i'm saying is that a rather obviously rusty tiger still had a very legit chance to win a major. this should be very frightening for everyone else as he shakes it off. i'm not saying he has a good chance to win a major this year, i'm saying that he will.

 

So you're saying that normally he comes from behind (lol) to win on the final day of a major? Really?

And of course he's going to win more majors.

 

no... what i'm saying is that a rusty tiger came in fourth at the masters as his first competitive golf in five months. i'm saying this does not bode well at all for the rest of the PGA as he becomes less rusty. i'm saying that a abnormally mistake prone tiger could have won the masters despite everything. now, you tell me how that doesn't matter?

 

no. i don't think he'll have to play his best. i think he'll just have to play decent.

 

I'd assume that by best Marcus meant 'not rusty'. Everyone knows that he can win tournaments when he doesn't have his 'A game'. The point we're making is how is this news?

 

didn't really say it was news. what i was saying was that it was a bit surprising that he could play that poorly and still come in fourth in the freaking masters after a five month break. that is not normal. there's a difference between not bringing your A game, playing good and just playing decent. with what he did if he had played DECENT he'd have won. unquestionably. i mean, if you look at how he plays normally at all that was bad. just flat out bad, and he, playing bad, nearly won the masters. i'm saying THAT is why people should be worried. not that tiger playing good or A game is good enough to win, but playing decent... that's new. before tiger just playing decent was good enough for a top ten in a major, this time him playing bad was good enough for a top five. after everything he's dealt with. that's a bloody major surprise to me.

 

I seriously doubt that he will ever be more dominate than he was from 2005-2008. The amount of first and second place finishes he had in the majors was insane. He didn't become a better golfer during the last 5 months.

 

yea, but unless i'm mistaken people were saying he'd fallen back to the pack. i'd submit the masters as proof to the contrary. he may not be more dominant than that stretch, but he very well might be near that dominant again. kinda goes against what people were saying was going to happen or had happened. least everything i'd read about him for the last oh... seven or so months now.

and right now i'm pretty well done for the night.

 

Anyone with a brain knows that he's the best golfer in the world by some distance. He's just not a very good human being.

 

Exactly. You can say what you want about his personal life being "none of your business", but he's a major sports star and his image matters. He can beat Jack Nicholson's record all day long now, and it will still be tarnished by about 13 prostitutes and two or three strippers. There is still something to be said for class in a sport, no matter how much the Tigers and the Big Bens and the A-Rods would like you to think otherwise.

 

i guess the pundits don't have a brain then, since they've been saying he's not going to be anywhere near what he was before.

*shrugs* doesn't really matter that much i don't guess.

and yea, i'm with your roo. i can't stand big ben. haven't been able to for a while now, and i doubt he'll ever do anything to change it.

so here's a question... is it worse to cheat in life, or cheat in the sport? does not cheating in the sport even matter anymore at this point?

 

1. Jack Nicholson plays golf? Well, maybe he does, but I don't know of any records he has

2. As to cheating in life vs in the sport... it depends on your perspective. If you're looking at them as a person, cheating in life is certainly worse; if you're looking at them strictly as an athlete, cheating in the sport is vastly more significant.

 

Even back to "Say it isn't so, Joe", athletes have been held up as some kind of warped version of "heroes", simply because of their talent. That may be unfair because your character doesn't have a whole lot to do with your ability athletics-wise, but when these guys start signing multi-million dollar contracts with Nike, Wheaties and Gatorade, they start to forfeit a little of that "don't judge me, it's my life" mentality. The system is designed, right or wrong, so that kids look up to these guys as some sort moral compass, and right now, they aren't setting really good examples.

Phil Nickleson used his critically ill wife as a motivation, where Tiger's was fighting to come back from a dreadful PR nightmare of his own making. At the end of the day, Tiger may be a better golfer, but Phil's the better man. And better golfers come along all the time.

 

Tiger may be a better golfer, but Phil's the better man. And better golfers come along all the time.

Couple things about this statement. First off, we have no idea if Phil is a better man. According to PGA players and people close to the game, Phil might be the biggest phony on tour. No one likes him, his entire image is thought of as a sham. His nickname among PGA players is FIGJAM, as in: "* I'm Good, Just Ask Me." He's very good at marketing an image of himself, honestly, he might be better at it then Tiger ever was. Sure, no stories have come out about him cheating on his wife, but none came out about Tiger until November either. Jason Whitlock had a good article a couple days ago, warning people against this whole: "Phil/Good Guy-Tiger/Bad Guy" idea. We don't know, and do you really want to give TMZ an excuse to find out for sure? http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/be-careful-casting-phil-as-anti-tiger

 

sam snead, jack niclaus, arnold palmer, bobbie jones, old tom morris (to me, did some things still not equaled), ben hogan (i think, might be crenshaw i'm thinking of but i doubt it), and i think that's really about it. that guy who francis ouimet beat way back when... started with a V... but yea, that's really about it as far as i can think of.

 

A better golfer could come along any day of the week, just like Tiger did. Those names Tristan threw out there were the best at one time. (I'm not even convinced Tiger is the best of all time, now.) Are you saying that he's the be all, end all of golf and his record is infallible? Just because he's what some consider the best right now? I don't buy it. And when the story comes out about Phil's sexual escapades and him cheating on his wife, we can talk, but until then history still has Tiger ahead on that one. And Phil would really have to have cheated on his wife a lot. I think that's one Tiger will win.

 

lol @ Tiger

 

not a good day for him, certainly

 

Tiger just compared himself to a baseball player going to 0-4 two days in a row.

I wonder why he's been struggling since the Masters.

 

*puts foil hat on*

This is a planned poor showing by Tiger and Nike to get some sympathy on his side and some fans rooting for him


*takes hat off*


Now, I don't actually believe it, but it had to be said.

I'm not surprised he had a bad showing. Golf is a game where emotions can totally take control, and one bad shot/hole can steamroll into an entire round. With as emotional as Tiger is, his biggest asset has been controlling that and avoiding having it impact his game negatively. It's going to take time to get back to that. I hope it comes at a major this year, so we can get back on the Jack watch.

 

Some guy on the radio said that Tiger should stop trying to repair his old brokjen image and embrace his new image. Become a bad boy of golf, a real life Happy Gilmore. Get together with a rapper and produce a record with the name The Notorious T.I.G.