Virginia Is For Families

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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Father’s Day this year was something special. Beth took your blogging buddy out to breakfast and I was able to enjoy lots of treats that you will not find at the local fast food place. And then we wandered over to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens for the special event they planned for the day.

I have some photos to share of the antique cars and Harley Davidson motorcycles. Also a really cool dragon fly! Some of them are posted at Photo LinkLove which has enjoyed or endured depending on your perspective another face lift. I really think this will be the last one for awhile since it incorporates everything I had ever hoped to do to it.

And then there was Tiger Woods and the US Open! Talk about golfing excitement! Tiger put on an incredible show as he fought his way to the lead on Saturday, came out on Sunday and immediately gave it up when he played the first hole as if I had taken possession of his body and then fought back again to tie the leader on the last hole.

So it’s not over yet! We get to see eighteen more holes today. Father’s Day is extended this year for another day! How cool is that? Do you think I can get someone to take me out to breakfast again before the golfing resumes?

Probably not. Tiger hit some amazing shots over the weekend. He was putting shots in the can from all over the place and the crowds were going nuts. And viewers all over the world were no doubt jumping off their couches and doing the same thing. It was a great day for golf.

And Tiger was hurt too. His recent knee surgery is still in the painful stages when pressure is put upon it. And a golf swing will put lots of pressure on it. At some point yesterday the number one golfer admitted taking the number one pain killer and stopped grimacing in pain. But it was an adventure.

We still can’t figure out why he hit a driver into the thirteenth hole after Lee Westwood put his ball in no man’s land and had to take a drop. Why?  And then on the next hole he hit an iron when he should have hit a wood. Why again?  And he lost a couple of shots for what reason?   But that just made the ending even more dramatic as he made a birdie from a hundred yards or so to send the tournament into overtime.

Tiger is a new father himself these days. Maybe that’s why he was sinking putts from all over creation. I don’t know. But it was a lot of fun and a golf tournament many of us will never forget. Want to see a photo of a cool car?

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One of the blogs in the blogroll here is Pumping Your Muse Prompts and it is a collection of photos and simple writing assignments.  I recommend it to those of you who are interested in writing more and exercising your imagination while you do it.

For example this morning I chose to do an exercise about a parked car and was asked to focus on emotion, smell and sound. In keeping with my present dark mood I set the scene before dawn in a rundown city area.  And here is what happened!

He sank down in the seat of his Chevrolet and waited for the morning light. He had spent most of the night in the bar up the street and only left because he felt uncomfortably close to an altercation with the stranger in the corner booth. Why had the man approached him as he was leaving? What did he want?

His car was strewn with empty Budweiser bottles and the smell of spilled beer and cigarettes mixed with the sharp odor of gasoline. The car wouldn’t start. He had flooded the feeble carburetor.

And suddenly his mind was flooded with fear as he saw the door of the bar swing open and the man burst through it and head down the sidewalk in his direction. The street was silent except for the sound of his purposeful walk.

“I need some help” he thought. But there was no one near and the hulking shadow under the street light continued in his direction.

“I am lost” he whispered to himself and he once again checked all the locks on the doors. But the sudden loud report of glass cracking into hundreds of tiny islands desperately hanging together came a second later.

“I should get out of the car” he said and suddenly rage filled him like a spark that threatened to turn the interior of the fume filled vehicle into a ball of flame.

He reached across his body with his violently shaking hand and released the lock. And with his left hand he pulled up on the handle. His feet hit the pavement and his weary frame suddenly weary no more stood up to meet his assailant.

He picked up the rock embedded in his windshield and thought about heaving it in the direction from which it had arrived. But a rock is a feeble weapon when pitted against a rather large handgun.

And this he could see as it was raised in his direction.

“What have I done?” he thought as light began to color the lonely street of this old and often violent city. “Why did I come here ?” and the answer came not in words but in the flash of the gun and a loud sound that somehow was all mixed up with a brief moment of pain as the street, his car and the shadowy figure now just a few feet away all exploded.

And suddenly he was looking down on a man lying in the street next to a green 1975 Chevrolet while another man turned and ran down the sidewalk.

He turned and looked in a window across the street because he heard a baby crying. And he suddenly knew that the small child was hungry and afraid and wanted his mother. Because he dreamed of ghosts in the night.

The child’s dream was disturbed as the light crept through the tattered shade of his bedroom window and he wanted to be held by his mother who was just coming out of the bar across the street.

She screamed as she saw the body of her friend lying on the pavement over a dark stream moving towards the gutter and the parked Chevrolet.

And slowly lights began to come on up and down the street as residents held their heads and turned their weary bodies towards a familiar sound and the beginning of another day.

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You can start something like this and really not know where it is going for awhile. Just put yourself in the scene as an invisible  bystander or one of the characters.   Imagine somehow you dropped out of the sky and there is this unfortunate man sitting in his car.   What is he thinking?  What is going to happen?

I probably took this exercise somewhat far afield but no one is going to grade this thing.  We are not in school anymore.  Please let us not bring our teachers home with us!

Today the weather turned hot and humid so I guess play time is over. We had a nice run but now it’s time for some real Virginia weather. I came home and made a drink. The flipped the switch on the AC unit recently installed and sat down to see what was happening here.

I have more time now to go out and read blogs and meet people. My blogs are running (more or less) and it really is fun and interesting to meet other bloggers. Robin Easton is a jewel. And Evita of Evolving Wellness is another very special person. I read her posts and the hair on my neck starts to tingle.

What?!!

Oh no. That’s a good thing actually. It’s not something that my wife minds because it’s a thought process more than anything else based on my fascination with the sincerity and single mindedness of her approach to health and our wellbeing.

So I was reading her post about alcohol and the fact that it is poison while I was enjoying my rum and coke. The big old rum bottle was sitting there. Empty. And I had planned to go out and get another one.

But then I decided not too. I need all my remaining brain cells.

Pretty desperately in fact at this point.

And then Robin and I were talking about fear and dying. I think we agreed that being dead is not really a problem. Because after all we can fly when we are in our spirit bodies. And we all want to do that.

I mean if we could buy tickets to do it there would be long lines out to the sidewalk every day.

Not to die but just to fly. And then we were talking about the hard part actually being PAIN. I fear pain. And I was watching Henry last night on Showtime (The Tudors) go ballistic and start torturing all these poor guys who had done nothing.

Because he thought they had slept with Ann. And by the time he got done with them they all said “Well yes. I did sleep with her” even though they hadn’t. Because you know you will say anything if someone tortures you.

They wouldn’t even have to torture me. I would be like “Please just let me know what you think I did. I’m pretty sure I did it. Just remind me if you would about the details. I’m a little forgetful”.

Torture is so stupid. You want the truth? Forget it. You want someone to agree with you. NO PROBLEM.

They put the poor fiddle player on the rack and pulled him apart. I was very upset even though I know he is an actor and can hit that high C note without being stretched if he wants to do it.

I couldn’t sleep. I’m still upset about it. How can one human being do these things to another human being?

“I was just doing my job mister. I work here in the Tower of London. I’ve got five kids at home to feed. And I just turn the wheel. Somebody else brings em in here. Maybe they should have not gotten themselves in trouble”.

Please. I need to stop watching television. Putting torture on tv is worse than letting naked men and women have at it. And what it says about the human race is much worse.