A TIGER AND A MOUSE

Rob and Henry, avid golfers, respond to the victory by Tiger Woods at the Masters and look ahead to the upcoming PGA Championship.  

Woods upon winning 2019 Masters

After the emotional high faded and the chants of “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!” stopped ringing in our ears following the 43-year old’s stunning win, in the ensuing solitude a sobering idea struck.  As the PGA Championship approaches, we hope there’s

no parallel here to a little book called Flowers for Algernon we came across in our youth.  Tiger's resurrection from golf’s scrap heap seems no less miraculous than the dramatic transformation depicted in that story, and in Charly, the award-winning movie the book spawned. For Tiger’s sake, and golf’s sake, we hope he does not suffer an analogous fate.

The Book and the Movie

American writer Daniel Keys published

Flowers for Algernon as a short story in 1959 and as a novel in 1966. Both feature a mouse named Algernon, who undergoes surgery that dramatically improves his intelligence, and a man named Charlie Gordon, the first human recipient of the same treatment. Charlie Gordon, portrayed in the movie by Cliff Robertson, who won an Oscar for the role, has an IQ of 68 and works as a janitor in a factory, where his co-workers constantly tease him. He has few meaningful relationships and it appears he doesn’t understand sex.

After the surgery, Charlie discovers sex and falls in love with a woman named Alice Kinnian, played in the movie by Claire Bloom, who had been his teacher as a mentally challenged man. Now a brilliant researcher himself, Charlie notices Algernon becoming listless and depressed. Eventually Algernon dies, showing Charlie the change is temporary. He knows his own intelligence gain will not last. Soon, Charlie regresses to his former self. The movie ends with Alice painfully watching the 68-IQ Charly on a playground with children. Keys reportedly resisted publishers and moviemakers who wanted a happy ending. 

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Tiger Woods

Golf had been waiting a long time for Tiger Woods when he burst onto the professional scene with his record 12-shot victory at the 1997 Masters. Trained by a father, Earl Woods, who thought his son could transform golf’s lily white image and make the game accessible to millions of people of color, Tiger dominated the sport between that first major championship and 2008 as no one ever had. In that 11 year span he won 14 major tournaments. Golf became vastly more popular, though the young players he inspired were mostly white. The reasons deserve exploration, but not now.

Then, it all fell apart, Tiger’s image and his game buried beneath an avalanche of injuries, dysfunction in his personal life, and hubris. He underwent five surgeries, one to reconstruct his knee, and four on his back.  One of those was a risky spinal fusion procedure in 2017 that left him barely able to walk. Two years ago at the champions dinner before the Masters, Tiger said he doubted he could ever play again.

He didn’t give up.  Step by step, he re-learned the game.  He resumed competition in

December 2017 and, in July 2018, almost won the British Open, holding the lead going into the final round. The next month, he closed with a 64 in the PGA Championship, his lowest final round

ever in a major, but fell just short. He won the 2018 Tour Championship, not one of golf’s four majors, but a significant triumph. That, and this 2019 Masters win for his fifth green jacket, leave him only one win short of Sam Snead’s tournament victory record of 82.

And Now?

The medical procedures that got Tiger Woods back on the golf course weren’t ordinary. His fusion surgery represented a last-ditch measure with no guarantee of success and no assurance it will hold up over time. No one knows how long his window for success remains open. Will the stress of high-level golf take too great a toll? When Masters officials moved up the final round because of threatening weather, Woods himself said getting “this body ready” meant rising at 4 a.m. or before.

Golf fans, and the players, know the sport needs a healthy Tiger Woods competing for major championships. He brings a buzz, an excitement, nobody else does. A perfectly rational argument exists that he should take this latest signature win and leave the game with his legacy complete, especially given the implausible nature of his comeback. No one should count on that, though. Tiger’s competitive nature won’t let the story end here, not with the PGA at Bethpage Black looming and the U.S. Open following at Pebble Beach.

              

The Flowers for Algernon/Charly analogy

hangs there, like a Sword of Damocles, over Woods and golf. If he’s injured again, this wonderful glow could turn dark. Should the miracle medical procedures hold up, logically he has about four years for challenging Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships and cementing his place as the sport’s unquestioned Greatest Of All Time.   Jack won his last major, the 1986 Masters, at age 46.

Maybe Tiger has longer.  We’ve come to expect the unexpected from him.   We hope it plays out that way and we live to see it. We should enjoy this while we can.