On Friday, ESPN aired a video about Tiger Woods and his comeback at the tournament that he has previously won four times. However, health and personal problems almost derailed his career as one of the world’s best golfers.
ESPN senior writer Wright Thompson speculates in the video about what could be inspiring Tiger today.
While Tiger has had millions of fans for years, it may be, Wright says, that the golf legend is hoping two fans in particular get a chance to see him win: Daughter Sam and son Charlie.
Tiger Woods is within sight of the lead. Two years ago he thought his career might be over. Now he’s rebuilt himself into an above average professional golfer. And that might be the only reward he gets for this long road of injury, surgery, and recovery.
The first act of his career — the greatest stretch of golf ever played — seems to offer the hope that he might find a storybook capstone to his quest. And maybe that will happen. Maybe that will happen this week.
Common sense suggests that it won’t. And that’s got to eat at him. Not only because it won’t catch [Jack] Nicklaus; because he won’t be able to wash out the taste of decline and decay.
Woods, 43, is competing against a field of golfers who are, in some cases, decades younger than he is. His children, are too young to remember their dad’s time as a golf superstar.
“His kids don’t remember when fields trembled at the sight of a red shirt,” Thompson says in the video. “They’ve never seen him be Tiger Woods and maybe that’s why he’s still out here.
“Once he performed for an audience of millions,” Wright says. “And now it seems like he’s performing for an audience of two.”
Tiger made it to weekend play and ended Saturday near the top of the leaderboard with a score of -11.
The final round of the tournament has been moved up to 9 a.m. EDT because of a threat of thunderstorms in the afternoon.
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