GOLF fans have been immersed in Tiger Woods’ Masters fairytale for near to three decades now, and they are still so invested in what the story has left to offer.
In the near eve of the 2024 Masters, in what will be Woods’ 26th entry, he foretells his unedifying ambitions to win another green jacket, in what would inscribe another chapter into his bountiful book of golfing greatness.
Being a seasoned campaigner, Wood’s has learnt to calculate the delivery of his words in press conferences to entice the journalists and pull on their heart string a bit.
“I hurt every day.”
The simple response to what seemed a consistent question about the health of the five-time Master champion at the 2024 press conference.
Maybe it’s because the press like to downplay the chances of an aging great of the game actually winning the prestigious tournament, but they will always write about Woods, regardless.
Woods’ in-tune knowledge and experience knows this, so offers the press just a crumb of content to run with, for them to then escalade the imagination of fans:
“If everything comes together, I think I can get one more [green jacket].
Stated by Tiger Woods in the 2024 Masters Press Conference
In 2005, he completed his fourth chapter of winning the Masters, with fans encapsulated by his greatness to the game, continuing to add value to his golfing identity.
Woods’ story, a piece of creative non-fiction, then started to fizzle out as his poor form meant his glory days were dimming.
A 10-year hiatus of failure followed him at Augusta National, with questions being proposed for Woods to end his story, to maintain its shelf life in golf’s history.
But, the drive, the determination, the champions mentality, which has matured so beautifully in his prolific career, shaped by the adversities of racism and the cut-throat strings attached with stardom, Woods’ writing pen still had ink left to bleed.
When asked in the 2019 Masters pre-tournament press conference:
“Tiger, do you feel like you need to win here again, or do you just want to win here again?”
A question asked by a journalist in the 2019 Masters Press Conference.
Woods took a short moment to think, enough time to build an even higher anticipation in the press room, and simply responded…
“Well, I don’t really need to win here again, but I really want to”.
The answer to the question raised at the 2019 Masters Press Conference.
A line that all fans mostly knew and heard before, because if not, then why compete?
But, it’s the hope that kills you.
Every patron on foot at Augusta is magnetised to the hole where Woods is playing, but when Woods was outside the top 10 after his first round in 2019, the fans’ attention started to wander away from this ageing story.
But a jump scare occurred through rounds two and three, Woods shot rounds of 68 and 67, to grab the fans’ attention yet again as he was heading into Sunday tied second.
Dressed in his ‘Sunday Red’ attire, symbolising a gladiator like aura that’s been recognised for years, Woods’ fought and batted against fellow American’s Xander Schauffele, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, who were all chasing their first Masters win, all the way to the 18th hole.
Woods’ made the winning putt to claim his fifth green jacket, and this long awaited chapter came to a tear jerking end as he embraced his children and his mother, a full circle moment extracted from the first chapter when him and his father, Earl Woods, embraced after Woods’s first Masters win.
Woods’ the storyteller never knows when to put the pen down, but as time goes on, the expectation and reality of success lowers in what could be an anti-climactic end to his career.
But the Woods-Masters love affair can never be written off.
