Tiger Receives the Trophy from Golf Legend and Tournament Host Arnold Palmer
The world’s most dominant athlete (as voted by ESPN Viewers) has officially returned.
Sure, most people take a little while to recover and return from an ACL injury. Sure, most people even catch a little slack from fans and critics alike once they finally do make it back. Heck, a few have even been known to use it as an excuse or justification, but not if your name is Tiger Woods.
Down 5 strokes to start the final day, Tiger came out roaring in typical Sunday fashion to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It helps that the mere sight of “Woods” on the leaderboard causes his competitors’ stomachs to get queasy. A 16-foot dagger to the heart of Sean O’Hair on the 18th green at Bay Hill solidified Tiger’s fifth overall win at the event held by the legendary Arnold Palmer. Tiger’s birdie on 18 to win was the 3rd time he’s won the event in such a fashion and the gracious host, Arnie himself, said it best “There wasn’t any question about it, was there?”
No Arnie, indeed there was not. While some began to question Tiger’s killer instinct and inner strength after not winning his first tournament back from knee surgery, he went a long way toward’s silencing that crowd on Sunday. Now 1 for 2 on his return, an even more impressive statistic shows that after Tiger missed the cut at the 2006 U.S. Open, an error which some believed would prove he was human after all, Tiger has won a ridiculous 18 of 32 events. While there is no mathmatical equation to put that into comparable numbers in other sports (winning 4 of 6 super bowls, 6 of 8 NBA championships, etc.) one thing remains unchanged. No face in sports today is more recognizable around the world than the one of Tiger Woods.
And to Eldrick: welcome back, you were missed.
-asm
My apologies to Les Miles.
(and also to our most loyal follower Will Reno for allowing golf to be published before soccer as well, I promise futbol will have it’s day in the sun)
Blah blah blah. What you should be talking about is FC Dallas’ Kenny Cooper scoring from midfield last week. He completely embarrassed that guy who was supposed to be playing goalie.
Hockey has already been mentioned this year, its alittle to early to mention soccer…
I decided to watch the last 12 holes on sunday rather than the basketball game and I’m glad I did. Tiger is a player that transcends the game. For several years I rooted against Tiger, mostly because of how good he is and how much I want to see someone beat him head to head. I’ve changed the last few years though, I don’t care if he wins or loses as long as he is in contention. If he wins its either because he dominates or someone else gets shaken, or a combination of both, and if he loses then someone else is playing a dream round. The players have seen other people win when Tiger’s in the field and he wins ONLY about 25% of the time so I don’t think people are scared any more. Golf is a game against yourself more than your competition. I respect Sean O’hair for being gutsy and hanging around til the end, kinda reminds me of my PAT rounds. I expect him to use that experience and be a contender at the Masters.
All that being said, there are 2 things I’m certain of: Jesus is coming back, and Tiger is back. Even though I new what was going to happen, I couldn’t help but watch in awe. He raised the bar back up on his already rediculous expectations. He wins 25% of the time overall and almost 27% of majors. But even if drops to 20% in majors and other tournaments and only plays 15 events a year til age 40, he will have passed Jack in majors and Sam Sneed in overall wins. The only thing better than seeing him get beat is seeing him win a close one.