A Huge Moment In Time
Tiger tees off at the Masters trying to put his broken world behind him
A Weekly Column and Perspective by Scott Pharr
Portrait by Mark Sanislo
We are all very lucky right now to be smack dab in the middle of a massive historical event when Tiger tees off at 1:42pm, on Thursday, April 8th, 2010. I put this next to the Black Sox scandal of 1919, for example. We don’t feel the gravity of what is taking place because it is taking place before our eyes. But the significance of what is happening to Tiger will be talked about for so many years to come. Because Tiger is what Bobby Jones was or what Jack Nicklaus was. He is that big. But it is hard to grasp it as it happens.
This moment, between when the scandal broke and when he places the ball on the tee on #1 today, is as significant a moment in sports as Maris hitting 61 or Jackie Robinson stepping to the plate for the first time. Maybe I am making too much of it, but since we are all sports fans, it’s worthwhile to stand back and think about how enormous what we are living through is and how it will be discussed for the next 100 years or more.
People still talk about Ben Hogan’s car accident, don’t they? I felt this way when McGwire launched #62, but now I am of course jilted regarding that. This experience is a different kind of milestone. It is knowing that whatever happens today , history is happening and every single movement is important and consequential. I don’t think Tiger slept a wink Wednesday night, and I don’t think he has a clue how people will react today. Who knows what we will see from him, but whatever it is, it will matter and it will be important. We will talk about it for a long time to come.
He’s brought us this far with his heroics and his dominance, now he has to figure out a way to sustain us. We, that meaning myself and whoever else is observing, are waiting impatiently to see if he can pull it off. Does he hook it right off the first tee and show immediately that he is feeling the weight of the universe? Or does he smoke it down the middle and prove with that first swing that he is as great as we all thought he was at one point in time.
It’s all up to him, from now on. We are all watching and all ready to absorb the events as they unfold. But the fact of the matter is, good or bad, whether he makes the cut or not, we are all privy to history in the making and will be able to give our perspectives first hand.
April 8th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Scott Pharr and Scott Pharr, Scott Pharr. Scott Pharr said: History in the making – Tiger looks to move on and we all get to experience it — http://tinyurl.com/yfa5bmn [...]
April 8th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Well, as of today, he is doing better than I expected. Nice article and insight