HANDS
Hands are the raw talent part of the equation, the
ability to swing
a driver at 140 miles per hour yet still hit the ball
straight; to pluck,
scrape, gouge, pound and feather the ball from all
manner of lies and situations
along all sorts of trajectories and
paths, consistently depositing it within the
shadow of the flagstick;
and then, to hole 99.9 percent of one’s putts of three
feet and
under—as Tiger does.
In virtually every round he pulls off a shot
that no other player would dare attempt except in a practice round. As
a
putter he has no equal—partly because of his aforementioned strength
of Head and
Heart, but also because has an innate sort of feel.
The game’s history is
full of great ball strikers—Harry Vardon,
Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead,
Peter Thomson, Tom Watson, Nick
Faldo, Greg Norman—but none of them had Tiger’s
full measure of
tee-to-green magic. Probably the only ones in his class in terms
of
shotmaking virtuosity were Seve Ballesteros and Lee Trevino, each of whom
could make the ball dance and had what Johnny Miller has aptly
described as
“a sixth sense” for the game.
But neither Seve nor
Lee had Tiger’s Head or
Heart. Seve was one of the game’s leading
whiners (a mantle he seems to have
passed on to Sergio) and Trevino,
after a couple of poor early finishes at
Augusta, talked himself out of
ever winning the Masters.
On today’s Tour,
only Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els seem to have
Tiger-like talent but, once
again, neither has his Head or Heart (or
for that matter his Health). Witness
their collective dozen or so
collapses in the clutch of big events.
HEALTH
Few professional athletes of any stripe, much less
in golf, are in
better shape than Woods, thanks to his rigorous regimen
of daily exercise. On
most mornings he’s at work in the gym before all
but a few of his tour
colleagues have gotten out of bed. As a result he
has achieved a greater
combination of strength, flexibility, quickness
and stamina than golf has ever
seen in one player.
From the
past, only Player and Norman can compare.
Player, as noted above, also
had plenty of Heart, but in terms of Hands—pure
strength and
talent—Tiger started with more than Gary ever developed. As for
Norman,
his lengthy record of missed opportunities betrays a fatal flaw or two
in his Head and Heart.
Today, a group of young pros led by
Adam Scott
and Aaron Baddeley spend almost as much time in the gym as
Tiger—almost—but
becoming stronger and limber will take them only so
far. They will need to
develop the other three Hs as well if they hope
to challenge Tiger.
Simply
put, Tiger has Player’s Health, Seve’s Hands, Hogan’s Heart,
and Nicklaus’ Head.
That’s why he’s the best ever.
