Well Played, Tiger!

It is a world where we humans relish other people’s misfortune and scarcely bring attention to their achievements. The case of Tiger confirms this. It was the sports headline of the year when he fell from grace, first because of injury, and later when his sex addiction was made public, which ended his marriage after he had announced his indefinite retirement from golf. For a month, the media forgot all other competition, where heroes were battling for glory as they do every weekend, all because of the fall of Tiger. But now that Woods is back to reclaim his territory, now that he is reinstalled as golf’s world number one and has rebuilt his personal life – a cornerstone for his return to the summit – many have forgotten to mention him. But such is life: It must be that we humans lurch from failure to failure, and because of this we identify more with catastrophe than with success.

However, the case of Tiger represents another opportunity to change direction. It is time to understand that our heroes are also human and that like all of us, in the course of a lifetime, they lose more battles than they win.

Surely, Tiger did not suffer financial problems in the wake of his fall, in spite of the millions that he lost between his divorce and his abandonment by a number of his sponsors. He had the choice of letting his addiction take over or learning to control it, despite the sporadic instances of happiness that it brought him. He could have retired from sport forever, and nobody would have scratched his name from the history books as the best of all time.

However, like a true hero, Woods chose the most difficult path: that of confronting his crisis, digging deep into its roots, and biting the bullet to set himself on the road to recovery. His most difficult achievement was learning to live his life based on his conscience, rather than letting his unconscious desires govern him. We must remember that golf requires considerable psychological strength – if the head is not right, the rest practically never comes out as it should.

Tiger has won three of the five tournaments that he has competed in this year; he has returned to the top of golf’s world rankings, though he might not stay there as long this time. Some say he needs to win another Major to prove he is back to his best. What is certain is that Woods has already managed to redeem himself, sort out his personal life and show the world that he has more virtues than flaws. If only the world were so diligent in reporting these cases, in which heroes do not stop being precisely that, heroes, even if they do show themselves to be human.