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The Masters and my Tiger Woods man crush

The handshake between Woods and Williams was routine. The loss by Woods and Steve Stricker turned out to be the real drama in the Presidents Cup. (AP Photo/David Callow)
Roar Pro
10th April, 2013
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Maybe it reveals more about me in a Freudian sense than I’d care to investigate, but I’m just going to come right out and say it – I have a man crush on Tiger Woods.

And the feeling runs deep. Indeed, it runs right over my love of Australian golf.

I’d dearly love an Australian to take out this week’s Masters, especially the cool, calm and seemingly down to earth Adam Scott.

This is a man for whom victory would cast aside any unfortunate comparisons with Greg Normanesque major meltdowns.

But no. If it’s a choice between Adam and Tiger down the stretch on Sunday, despite how I think I should feel in patriotic sense, I’ll be rooting for the man in the red Nike shirt (assuming Adam doesn’t also don a red Nike shirt in the fourth round).

It’s easier to answer why this year.

Many can argue that golf needs Tiger, or that he’s great for the game – he makes golf “cool” and all that — and that a win in a major will cement his status as “back” from the depths of his post affair meltdown.

And what a meltdown.

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More than just an affair, he did enough to get a mention in South Park, which is a mark of distinction in my book.

But I’m not going to let myself get away with that: I wanted him to win just as much when he dominated.

In the glory days of 2000-2002 it was golf’s version of Django Unchained and just like the Tarantino film, I loved every moment of it.

As a golfer he’s everything I’m not. Perhaps even as a person.

Strengths and weaknesses I may have, but no one is going to call me unflappable or refer to my nerves of steel.

Yes, unfortunately, on the golf course I used to be a choker. When I’m coming down the stretch, especially when I’m a couple under my handicap, the big hook into the muck down the left or the missed supposedly unmissable one and a half foot put was never far away.

Interestingly enough, alcohol changes the equation somewhat. I’m quite a competent pool player and with enough beers I don’t choke on the black.

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My friends call me the “drunken master”, meaning I play good stick long past when most people go to booze bedlam. Perhaps when I return to serious golf I might take up the bottle, of course making sure to keep things just shy of John Daly’s antics.

But Woods, well, he doesn’t need the calming reassurance of a beer haze to get the job done under pressure.

I’ll never forget his victory in the 2008 US Open.

Poor Rocco Mediate would have been entitled to expect one of those puts like this on the 18th to lip out. This was also the tournament that he played virtually on one leg.

My admiration of this kind of ability – not so much the putting, but the mental focus, determination and mindfulness – is perhaps what underlies why I love the guy so much.

And it probably explains why I talk about that kind of moment first, and moments like this next one second – although I could watch that chip shot one thousand times and not get bored.

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One wonders where his determination comes from. You have to think it has something to do with being a black man competing in a sport that often exemplifies white privilege in the United States.

As a middle-class white man, these kinds of societal challenges don’t really confront me and it can be all too easy to feel like Jimmy Dean (his character in A Rebel Without a Cause that is).

But through Tiger Woods I can enjoy watching someone rage against the machine, which incidentally is one of my favourite bands.

I don’t know whether Tiger Woods actually is anti-establishment beyond the symbolic.

Obviously his phenomenal mental abilities are about more than just determination.

Tiger Woods is a Buddhist, and his mediation has no doubt helps his awareness of self, a crucial element in success at most things, but particularly golf.

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Indeed the sport seems to take the lead in “sports psychology” as this recent article about Aussie Jason Day exemplifies.

And then there’s his love of longhaired blonde women and his abuse of fame to sleep with many of them. But how could I hold that against him.

I’ll just stop right here. Carn’ Tiger (and Adam)!

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