Friday 28 September 2018

Further thoughts on the Tiger revival

Two other points I meant to make in my recent post Tiger on the prowl. The first was how different Tiger looks now he's playing like Eldrick rather than Baldrick.

I was reminded of the other by Sky commentator Ewan Murray, when he compared Woods's comeback to that of Muhammd Ali. Ali famously regained the world heavyweight title when he beat George Forman in The Rumble in the Jungle. I can still hear Harry Carpenter's commentary in my head: "He's won it back at the age of 32!" which was considered old for a boxer then. Mrs H will vouch that I had already said that Woods's return to glory was Ali-esque. There may be comebacks in sports I don't follow which bear comparison but the only other return to which I can compare Woods's rejuvenation is a Dr Who regeneration. And at the age of 42, which is fairly old for a golfer - only 22 of the recognised majors have been won by someone aged 42 or over in 446 attempts, several of those being more than a century ago.

So it would still be amazing if Woods was to win the 4 more majors he needs to equal Jack Niclaus's 18. But there's a chance....

No comments:

Post a Comment