Shipnuck's psychological profile of Tiger

The meathead body type and SEAL body type are not the same. Although I get what you're saying.

 

Lugs, I thought the same about the timeline bouncing around. Thought the story was well done, and a lot of people who haven't followed closely likely learned a lot.

 

Yeah, that's a weird complaint for me, Jon. Every writer knows that the best stories tell you everything all at once.

 

Good read, but it felt as though the piece used time jumps as a way of freshening up material that was fairly well known. Still liked it.

 

I really, really liked the story because it brought together so many of the things that have been discussed the past seven years into a coherent narrative. The scandal; the loss of confidence; the injuries; the personality weirdness; memories of his past greatness; his intimidation; loss of intimidation.And there were some great quotes: Appelby on loneliness, Ogilvy's ending lines about what Tiger was and why it's so startling to see what he became.

And as a Tiger fanboy, this is all I have these days. Stories like this, or Kevin Van V.'s British Open piece. I've resigned myself to the fact 18 majors isn't happening (I know, last guy on earth to do that...and that said, I still have 2 percent belief it could happen) and all I really want out of his playing career now is just one more damn major victory. A Masters at 42, or maybe a British at 44. Just one more.

What the hell happened to Tiger is the biggest question in sports (haven't looked it up but isn't that basically the title of the thread we have on SJ about Tiger). And I think Shipnuck's piece gives an answer: Everything.

It was the injuries: All of those knee surgeries, of course. But even post-scandal--remember the run in the final round of the 2011 Masters. At the time he was again playing with an Achilles injury that kept him out of following two majors. In 2013 he was No. 1 player in the world again. Borderline dominant early in the season (haven't looked it up but in past 30 years, how many guys, other than Tiger himself in his prime, have won four times before the end of May, like he did in 2013? Anyone?), but hurt his elbow at the Players, which lingered into the U.S. Open. And at the end of that season, the first indications of a back injury that, of course, could end his career. But as the story shows...it's not just the injuries. It was also that loss of inevitability that came every time he was near the lead pre-scandal. Back to that 2011 Masters. Yes, he was battling the Achilles, but that final round also had shots that exemplified the new Tiger: a bad bogey on 12 after surging near the lead; a short missed putt on 15 for eagle that would have put him in solo first. It was something mental that happened that made him miss those putts, even if it wasn't quite true he always made them in his prime (see 72nd hole of 2005 Masters for proof).

And even with all of his disasters...he's won 8 times since 2012. Only Rory's won more since then. Yet it seems like a total failure, and that is because of the majors. And post-scandal, he showed a total inability to do anything on the weekends (had 36 hole leads at '12 U.S. Open and PGA, had lead late in round on Saturday at 2013 British). Shipnuck's piece, I think, does great job of delving into how the psychological damage from the scandal played into those failures.

Anyway, I could go on. But Shipnuck's piece worked because it brought all the threads together that made Tiger great from the Mike Douglas Show through the 2008 Open, and why everything has been so different from 09 and Y.E. Yang to after the fire hydrant. And even as a Tiger junkie, there were cool new stories, like the Seal Island leap into the water, which I maybe enjoyed even more because I've been to Seal Island a few times and had no desire to leap off the boat. And I of course loved some of the quotes from peers when talking about Tiger at his best, like Jerry Kelly talking about the putt against Els or the aforementioned Ogilvy lines. And the SEAL stuff is still fascinating, which I'd read about in Haney's book but is still so crazy to read about or consider how it affected Tiger's career. Picture Rory ruining his career to go fight with Northern Ireland's special forces.

So yeah, I was certainly the ideal audience for the piece, but just from a writing/reporting standpoint I think it was outstanding and will be one of the stories that people are still referencing in 10 years when we'll have a decade and a half of career obituaries and retrospectives about how it all went wrong (with the exception of that 15th major) for Tiger.

 

I'm with Shot... Not a lot of new info in this. Lots of speculation by - surprise! Hank Haney - and a few other used to be former inner circle friends.
It was ok.

More telling to me is that on the eve of The Masters SI sticks Tiger on the cover and makes it the cover story. Not Rory. Not Jordan. Not Day. Not Opening Day.
The guy not playing is still THE Story.