He's Ba-ack

Guess what? He’s ba-ack. After firing a blistering 7 under 65 today, Tiger Woods has taken complete control of the 135th British Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club. He is tied for low round in the tournament with Chris DiMarco, who also shot 7 under today and is the closest competitor to Woods at -9. Even though a very talented golfer in DiMarco is only 3 strokes back, the engraver may as well enter Tiger’s name onto the Claret Jug one more time and for the second time in as many years, after he won by 5 strokes last year at St. Andrews.

Yes, Tiger is back and back in focus after his father’s death and his abysmal showing at the US Open, and the world of golf is better for it.

Like most people, I am a huge Phil Mickelson fan. If there was a pay channel where I could watch not only all of Phil’s shots, but just have a camera follow him around the course so we could see what he is doing the entire time he’s on the course, I’d pay for it. If there was some sort of a contest where the winner got a chance to play a round with Phil, I’d enter it. When I went to the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in 2004, I made my dad walk the first 4 holes with me so we could follow Phil. And even though he has yet to get on the course this morning, and is -3 right now, there is no way he is making a big enough charge today to get to Tiger, and he isn’t going to come back over the weekend.

I’m not basing this on what happened on number 18 at Winged Foot last month, but on the fact that Tiger is the Mariano Rivera of golfers. He is the best closer in the game. He doesn’t come back the best, but he is unquestionably the best golfer in the world at finishing off a tournament. He doesn’t lose leads. Granted, there are golfers on the course still, so they can overtake him without him doing anything about it, but they won’t. He just golfed too well today to have anyone catch him today or for the rest of the weekend.

I feel blessed that I was alive and able to watch some of the best artists practicing their craft; Jordan, Armstrong, Favre, Maddux, Gretzky, and Tiger. With this latest domination, I think we may soon be saying that Michael Jordan was the Tiger Woods of basketball.

(and if for some ungodly reason, Tiger chokes this weekend and doesn’t win, the lesson as always is…. I’m an idiot!)

-Until next time…