Tiger put Vijay Singh in the Furyk bracket in terms of hard work and could remember that day at a PGA championship when he dared to empty another bucket of balls at Singh’s feet as the Fijian was on the point of wrapping up his four-hour session and taking his small son home for supper. Singh was amused; the hungry child was anything but.
So how long does Tiger spend on the range when he is back home at Isleworth?
“I could be out there for anything up to 14 hours,” he said, before explaining that that time might include 36 or 54 holes of “practice play”. Yet however long the day, it will be punctuated with drinks, chats and snacks. And with fresh insights into things his late father told him.
“I can’t tell you how often it happens that something he said comes back to me,” he marvelled. “It’s truly uncanny.”
He suspects it has to do with the way Earl would speak to him in riddles by way of making him think about what he was saying.
When your correspondent asked if Tiger could recall the last time he gave a chuckle of recognition as something his father told him hit home, he opted for a day the previous week when he had been on the practice ground at Isleworth with Sam and Charlie.
“In going over a few of the basics,” he said, “I could almost hear my father teaching me. Not only that, but I suddenly had this extraordinary understanding of why he said what he said all those years ago.” - LM
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