WHAT TIGER'S FATHER DIDN'T TEACH HIS SON

Published in Sun Star Cebu Newspaper on Aug. 14, 2011 Sunday issue
by Al S. Mendoza, Columnist - All Write
Mike Limpag, Sports Editor

IT didn’t happen. When it used to, this time, there was none of it: Miracles that kept happening so that you’d be justified if you say the dude had made a pact with the devil.

Still, when Tiger Woods got cut yesterday in the PGA Championship, it seemed like everybody had expected it.

Struggling to survive after opening up with a 7-over-par 77, he shot 73 and missed the cut for only the third time in a major in 15 years.

The cut was four-over and, by golly, he was 10-over.

Is this really the Tiger Woods we once knew, who won 14 majors, 16 world titles and 72 victories overall since turning pro in 1996?

Missing the PGA cut left the Masters as the only major where Tiger Woods hasn’t been left out for weekend play.

But everybody knows the reason: Tiger Woods has lost his mind ever since he got caught engaging in extramarital affairs on Nov. 23, 2009.

You lose your mind in golf, you are a goner, for the game is virtually all mental.

When Tiger Woods was winning those majors, everybody said he’d easily break the 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus. Even Nicklaus believed.

But when we see a phenom, a genius, we tend to forget the intangibles, the X-factors.

The soldier-father of Tiger Woods taught everything to Tiger: golf, intimidation, discipline, mind game.

But there was one crucial thing he forgot to teach his son: Commitment to the one you love.

His womanizing unearthed, Tiger Woods lost his wife, not to mention $100-million in divorce settlement.

If someone’s crying a river yet again over this latest blow on Tiger’s terrible terrain now, it could only be Tida, his Thai mother.

Our mothers have always been our last refuge—in our youth or middle age, and even in our old age.

No doubt Tida has forgiven her son —as we all did, I believe—for his indiscretion. Everybody deserves a second chance, after all.

So, until Tiger Woods regains his bearings, let’s hear it from Tiger himself after he got cut: “Now I’ll have nothing to do but work on my game.”

I disagree. More of the mind than of the game that he should work on.

Or was his Dad remiss on that, too?

(alsol47@yahoo.com)

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on August 14, 2011.