Virginia Breeze

And he has stress fractures too. But he tore his ACL last year after the British Open. So he has been playing on a torn ligament for almost a year! Here’s what his father, Earl, had to say this past weekend in a commercial for Nike about his son:

I’d say, ‘Tiger, I promise you,’” Earl says as we look upon his son’s unmistakably steely gaze, “‘that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.’ And he hasn’t. And he never will.”

Earl, of course, died some time ago but his words are still around. And now we are starting to see exactly what he meant when he said those words.

Tiger did have surgery for cartilage damage.

“He did not play overseas late last year for the first time since 2003, hopeful that rest could allow him to play more this year. But the pain intensified through the Masters, where he finished second, and Woods said the cartilage damage developed from the ACL injury.”

–Yahoo Sports

So his damaged ACL brought about some cartilage damage and he had that fixed. But the damaged ACL was not repaired. Why? Maybe because it would have required him to stop playing golf this year. He would have missed the US OPEN.

This year’s US OPEN is special for Tiger. He grew up in the area. He has won a lot of tournaments at Torrey Pines.

“Although I will miss the rest of the 2008 season, I’m thrilled with the fact that last week was such a special tournament,” Woods said.

So he walked around on a torn ligament for almost a year so he could play in THIS tournament. It’s not going to get better by itself. He knew he would have to have surgery but he postponed it so he could play this past weekend. And then he found out he had stress fractures too! The doctors told him not to do it according to his coach Hank Haney.

“Tiger looked at the doctor and said, ‘I’m playing in the U.S. Open, and I’m going to win.’ And then he started putting on his shoes,” Haney said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Come on, Hank. We’ll just putt today.”

Tiger made his knee worse by postponing his ACL surgery. He dealt with the pain in order to play in the US OPEN.

The question is did he INCREASE the risk to his golfing career by doing things the way he did them. I guess it just depends on how much his knee can take before it becomes dysfunctional.

I doubt that anybody knows the answer to that question. But it’s clear that Tiger is not being too cautious about his situation.

Apparently life is a lot like the thirteen hole on the final round of the US OPEN to this great champion. He should have laid up but he went with the wood even after his adversary found the tall grass. He was hurt by that decision. He had to go to a playoff.

And then he won. He moved off the thirteen majors and all the unlucky inferences you can draw from that number.

He doesn’t believe in luck. He believes in Tiger Woods.

He believed that he was going to win the US OPEN.

And he did. Along with six or seven other tournaments. Now he can rest and do his rehab. So he can come back next year and win some more tournaments.

Don’t be surprised if you see some of the PGA pros on the tour with this guy taking up bowling next year. It must be incredibly demoralizing to wake up today and realize that you haven’t won any tournaments while Tiger has been winning a bunch with a torn ligament and other damage to his knee and leg.

I’d say, ‘Tiger, I promise you,’” Earl says as we look upon his son’s unmistakably steely gaze, “‘that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.’

And he hasn’t. And he never will.”

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The Tudors on Showtime continues to provide rare Sunday evening enjoyment for those of us who have pretty much left the 2oth century medium of television to stew in its own reruns. Time has moved on a bit and Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth, future queen of England, looks to be around six years old.

Henry loves her very much but still would chop off his left arm for a son. Sorry. But chopping is such an integral part of this series. I am really hoping Ron Popeil will be making a guest appearance before it is over. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like when his wife  climbs those stairs and then look down into the hole on the eighteenth green for the last time.

Oh sorry once again. I am thinking about the upcoming British Open. This hole is large enough for a noggin and the director of this series thought it a nice touch to put a camera down below it so we can have a face to face with the soon to be departed.

But we have a ways to go before Ann lays out her lovely neck for the last time. She is ecstatic at the moment because she is pregnant and feels sure she will give Henry his son thus establishing her own position.

But Henry is a complicated guy and he doesn’t seem to be so happy. For one thing he misses Sir Thomas. And he blames Ann  for “making him” execute his friend and mentor. And then he gets a letter from his first wife who dies from lack of attention or something.

There is a strange and unbelievable scene where he sits on the floor reading this letter and holding his knees. Then he falls over and starts to cry. What’s that all about? Artistic license? Let’s not go overboard with all this sensitive king stuff.

Henry is quick to anger but he forgives his few friends after awhile because he is so isolated in his role of king and head of the new church. He would like to be sitting around with Sir Thomas and laughing about it all.

“Seriously, Sir Thomas. Do you really think you will burn eternally in flames if you whisper in my ear that I am who I think I am? You can be telling yourself I am a philandering miscreant at the same time as long as I can’t hear you. Isn’t it what’s in your heart that is important Sir Thomas. Hahahaha. Here! Have another drink. Don’t you feel even a little twinge when you see one of those beautiful young women we have around here? Hahahha.”

Henry kicks himself for depriving himself of all these wonderful moments. He feels so bad about it he sometimes sees Sir Thomas hiding behind the curtains in his room at night. He has nightmares too. And they all seem to center around his habit of beheading those who disagree with him.

He’s a gentle person at heart. Ann is the cruel one. It’s all her fault. She is an ambitious b**ch and quite shallow too.

You can tell this is the case because she is so happy at the moment. She has even stopped running her hand around her neck. And there is one more scene I must share with you. Ann and some of her friends are having a dance in a small tavern or room with a romantic fire in one corner. It is very dark. She runs into the arms of someone who picks her up and twirls her about the room just as Henry walks through the door.

Talk about your awkward moment. You can hear a pin or a pinhead drop as he walks around having a look at his “competition”. Then he grabs Ann and they start this long, passionate, angry and overly choreographed dance that ends up with a shot of them in bed.

Ann sinks one of her royal fingernails about a half inch into Henry’s back and then lets it wander down to his butt in an attempt I suppose to see if he really does have a spine. She must not have found it because then she smacks him in the face a couple of times!

Talk about pressing your luck. Henry started doing a slow burn a long time ago where Ann is concerned. He is isolated in the geopolitical sense and in the sense that he executed his best bud! How much more of this can he take?

A lot is riding on whatever is baking in the royal oven. If this does not turn out well we may see Henry’s fingernails revealed. They are very long and sharp. And they are attached to ten foot long poles in the possession of some very scary and masked avengers.

So tune in and see what happens next. And don’t forget to grab a feed so that we can discuss the finer details here when it is over.

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Here are some photos from the Showtime series

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Tiger won again today and took home some ungodly sum of money. Alright let’s say it. He won millions of dollars today! Not one, two or five million but ten million dollars plus however much he won for winning this particular tournament. It is difficult to imagine making that amount of money playing a sport or doing anything else for that matter. How many CEO’s make that much money in a year!

But Tiger gives a great deal of pleasure to a large number of people who enjoy watching him play golf. And he’s also the kind of person they can admire. He has a great smile. He can start crying in front of millions of people when he wins the British Open and his father isn’t there to enjoy it. And he never stops trying to become a better golfer. Think about it. He is recognized by virtually everyone to be the greatest golfer playing the game. And he’s still out here changing his swing and doing anything he can think of to be a better player.

It may be that he actually loves becoming a better golfer more than he loves winning. He acknowledges being an extremely competitive person. So maybe he is competing with himself as well as others. And if you compete with yourself you can never slow down. It’s like you are on a spinnng wheel. The faster you go the faster the wheel turns. And the faster you must go.

It will be interesting to see how he deals with retirement someday. I hope I’m still alive to see it. In the meantime I bet he learned long ago how to sleep the night before a big golfing showdown with mega bucks on the line. And how important is it in golf to get a good nights sleep? I’m thinking it’s very important and not a lot of other golfers can do it.

I bet he sleeps like a baby and wakes up feeling ready to go. No pressure. What kind of a chance do the rest have if it gets down to the last day? He’s already got a big advantage before they tee off.

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The other thing I find amazing is how he can stop his golf swing six inches from the ball if a bird flies by or there’s a noise. There is something almost super human about this. It’s as if there is a robot in there somewhere. How does he do that? Probably his dad taught him to do it when he was small. He did it again today. He did a lot of things today. And he made it look pretty easy.

Tiger, thanks for showing us so many things.

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More Sports

http://davidnotes.com/2007/09/13/university-of-virginia-football/

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http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/index.htm