Growling Tiger

Think of one thing that you're really good at. One thing.

Let's pretend that one thing is staring contests. You're the master of staring contests. Now let's say that all the best starers in the world get together for staring competitions. You have to stare over and over again for 4 day tournaments. And you're so good at staring that you beat all these other professional starers. And you do this regularly. And everyone expects you to win. Always.

Well, I'm realizing that staring contests was a horrible example. So hopefully you thought of something better that you're good at. Whatever that may be, the scenario above is what it would be like to be Tiger Woods.

PGA Tournaments pit all the best golfers in the world against each other, and they play 4 rounds, or four days, of golf. And, obviously, in keeping with how golf is played, the lowest score at the end of the tournament wins. Everyone else doesn't lose; they place. The golfer with the second-lowest score finishes second. (And he still gets a lot of money.) And for many golfers, a top 5 finish would be the highlight of their career.

But when Tiger Woods finishes anything other than first, you'll notice sports gurus referring to it as a loss for Tiger Woods (I'm sure, as competitive as he is, Tiger sees it the same way). But I think the suggestion that a second-place finish be considered a loss, in a field of all the best players in the world, in a sport where strokes can be determined by fractions of an inch, is just absolutely absurd.

In golf, not winning is not the same thing as losing.

If Ernie Els finishes 9th, Vijay Singh winds up 5th, Mickelson shoots 3 under on the final day and heads to the clubhouse in 8th... none of those pros "lose." Yet Tiger Woods finished 5th last weekend, and all week people have been talking about Tiger Woods "losing."

Here's why:

Tiger Woods is the best athlete ever. Ever.

Yes, better than Michael Jordan. I said it.

No one has ever been as dominant in their sport as Tiger Woods is on a golf course.

Here's a few numbers for ya:

-Heading into last weekend's PGA tournament, Tiger had won the last 5 tournaments in which he played (including every one thus far in 2008).

-Tiger had finished first in 7 of his last 8 tournaments, with the one exception being a second place finish on September 3, 2007 (a "loss," clearly).

And remember, he is playing against the whole field. Of professionals. All it should take is for one player to play great golf, and Tiger would get edged out. But this rarely happens. It's truly remarkable. Woods is just that dominant.

Last weekend, when he didn't win...when he was edged out by fellow professionals...did Tiger tip his hat to them and say "nicely done, chaps"? (I think that's how golfers talk, right?)

No, Tiger, the greatest athlete ever, decided to blame his loss on the photographers.

Come again?

That's right, those photographers, believe it or not, were taking pictures of him. And he heard their cameras click when he was in the middle of his backswing on an approach shot. Apparently this made Tiger flinch, pulling him off the shot a little...and instead of landing on the green his ball nearly went in the water.

Immediately after this, Tiger turned to the crowd and yelled at the photographers:

"The next time anyone takes a ****ing picture, I'll break his ****ing neck!"

You might want to read that quote again.

Right now you're thinking, "Tiger Woods said that?"

Yeah, Tiger Woods said that.

When asked on Monday about his outburst, he said that it's happened 3 or 4 times this year (can you believe that? People have been taking pictures of him...), and he's made a bogey on three of those holes. Apparently after we learn that photographers have made him bogey 3 holes this year we're supposed to think, "Well it's a wonder he didn't threaten to break their necks before!"

I should pause to point out that one of the reasons Tiger is so good is that he is a fierce competitor. As a competitive person myself, I can think of times (too many times, actually) when I have been frustrated or annoyed in the middle of a competition, and I have done things and said things that were inappropriate. In fact, I'm not proud of this, and I hesitate to post it, but during a competition I once told a girl, "If you weren't a girl, I'd punch you in the face."

Yeah, I said that (and I was 21 years old at the time).

I'm pretty sure though, if I had been asked about it the next day, I wouldn't have tried to provide background information that would justify a desire to punch that girl in the face. I would have been able to say, with my head down, "Yeah, I shouldn't have said that."

Tiger, on the other hand, smiled his patented smile and justified his outburst by saying that it's now happened 3 or 4 times (surely that warrants breaking a cameraman's neck, right?). When the interviewer pushed harder to get Tiger to address the severity of his response, Tiger smiled (of course) and said, "You have no idea what's said out there all the time on the golf course."

Then he repeated:

"That one shot took momentum away."

So again he is justifying his outburst.

From where I'm sitting, I don't even care if he's right. If I had been playing that hole and a photographer's clicking camera made me flinch, stripping me of my momentum and costing me the tournament...I'd be hacked off, too.

But the next day, I could still say, "I shouldn't have responded that way." ("Why don't I just eat some hay. I can lie by the bay. I think I may. What do you say?")

Like it or not, cameramen will be there. For that matter, so will birds. And heaven forbid that one of those creatures of flight might coo or chirp at the wrong time in the upcoming Master's tournament...

As much as I love Michael Jordan, I now firmly believe that Tiger is the most dominant athlete I've ever seen. And his competitive nature is the thing that makes him great.

But instead of pointing to photographers for costing him the win, Tiger should still be able to tip his hat to the competition on those rare Sunday afternoons when someone else is receiving the over-sized check.

And he should definitely have enough class to admit that there is really no excuse for threatening to break necks on a golf course. Golf, after all, is a gentleman's sport. And as the greatest ever, Tiger should be able to win (and lose) like a gentleman.

--Thanks for reading

P.S. I eventually did apologize to the girl who I would have punched in the face if she hadn't been a girl. And for the record, we were playing a sport and she was cheating. And it destroyed my momentum. And it had happened 3 or 4 times. And...uh...she was asking for it...