Masters Memories

Enter Earl
Woods touched on the mental demands for the first time at his press conference ahead of the 2002 Masters. In reliving his victory of the previous year, the one which completed his so-called “Tiger-Slam” of all four majors, he mentioned that his temperature had shot up to 104 Fahrenheit (40 Celsius) on the Sunday night.
By way of explaining to the unenlightened what went into winning a major, he cited Bobby Jones. The latter would apparently lose ten to 12 pounds during a championship – a state of affairs which had contributed to his decision to retire at 28.
Tiger’s father, Earl, could have tried to keep his son under the radar. Instead, he exacerbated the situation by making one far-fetched prediction after another. Tiger, he said, would be like Gandhi: he would make the world a better place.
It was after Tiger had won again in 2002 that Earl stayed behind in the media centre to make further claims on his son’s behalf. “Tiger,” he said, “is like a forest fire and you don’t have anyone to stop it. He is continually improving and he will get better and better. Whether or not these guys get better is inconsequential.”
Earl would have been the last person to think that Tiger would be the player to ruin things for Tiger.