A Buddhist by faith and undoubtedly one of the most celebrated and best golf players in the world, Tiger Woods seems to have come back from his ordeal. So what went behind all the agony? All the angst? Is Tiger Woods still the best in the business? This blog is going to find out many such questions that have for a long time stayed impending.
Woods turned into a professional golfer in the year 1996, it cannot be ruled out that this man had made the fairies write his name on the ‘Golden Book’ because the moment he came in the year 1996, popular magazines named him the ‘Sportsman Of The Year’.
He won his first major and became the tournament''s youngest-ever winner.Two months later, he set the record for the fastest-ever ascent to number one in the Official World Golf Rankings.
Woods finished the 1999 season with eight wins, including the PGA Championship, a feat not achieved since 1974; no doubt his name was taken quite seriously, as he indeed was turning out to be a ‘Tiger’.
A whole gamut of endorsements knocked his gates, you name it and he had already nailed it! From General Motors, Titleist, General Mills, American Express, Accenture, and Nike, Inc. In 2000, he signed a 5-year, $105 million contract extension with Nike. It was the largest endorsing deal ever signed by an athlete at that time.
No one could contest the fact that he was rocking himself into a world that only respected people who knew their ‘grounds’.
It is said that once a man starts climbing the ladder to success, he forgets his roots, but seldom does that man know, that if he doesn’t have his feet on his ground, even the doors to success would smirk behind his back.
In November 2009, a tabloid published Wood’s story claiming that he had an extra marital affair with Rachel Uchitel, this was this man’s great fall and since that day things turned from worse to ugly . Post the allegation, Woods met with an accident which disabled him in any other tournament in that year.
Post the cheating allegation; he got roped into a bevy of other allegations posed by other women all claiming illicit relationship with him.
Apart from some of his brand endorsements, all other ones either dropped him or ended their contract. It was a perfect example of fame meets the bad world! And the final blow came when Wood and his now ex-wife, Nordegren got officially divorced on August 23, 2010.
Now the question is after thirty months of no spark, the man has come back with a bang, is this his vengeance or he was born to nail it?
The 14-time major champion won his first PGA Tour tournament since 2009 on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. The former world number 1 has now jumped back to a top 10 in the world ranking. He has the Masters this year to tackle; will he be back irrespective of the fact of the trauma that has just passed him? Will people take him to be the same Tiger Woods like before? Will he regain his position in the world radar?
I’m sure these questions are imbedded in every person’s mind as of now and not to forget even Woods may be employing himself day and night to think about the same. But for now, the game has re-begun!
