ORLANDO – In the wake of the theatrics Tiger Woods treated the sports world to late Sunday afternoon at Bay Hill, vanquishing poor Bart Bryant’s dreams by holing out a 24-foot birdie putt to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational by one, he left many of us trying to figure out how he does it time and time again.
How is he able to summon his best at the most crucial moments?
“We were struggling Thursday, Friday, Saturday,” Woods’ caddie, Steve Williams, said. “He always seems to find it on Sunday.”
Indeed, Woods had been struggling with his putting at Bay Hill all week, missing all 20 of his attempts outside of 18 feet before he lined up that final climactic one.
He, too, had not won at Bay Hill in four years – a slump of epic proportions for him – and he’d shot himself out of the tournament last year with a 43 on the back nine of the final round.
Yet there was Woods in the blazing late afternoon Florida sun, seizing a moment, winning his fifth consecutive PGA Tour event, seventh worldwide and ninth in his last 10, hitting a perfect tee shot on 18, an even better 5-iron approach to the green and then the putt.
There are many elements that go into what makes Woods so utterly remarkable, many of which are inexplicable.
You start with his God-given ability and add to it the input of his father, Earl, who like some sort of fatherly wizard truly shaped his son into what he is today.
One of those things that define Woods’ rare greatness, though, is obvious: He craves winning like it’s an addictive drug.
“It feels good, it really does,” Woods was saying with a 1,000-watt smile about an hour after he watched the winning putt disappear into the hole. “This is why you work all those tireless hours. It’s why you get up at 0-dawn-30 and log your miles, bust your tail in the gym . . . to be in that position right there to fail or succeed time and time again.
“Trust me, that’s the rush, to be in that position.”
Woods has always said he “lives”‘ to be in the position he was in Sunday and it shows. No one seizes the moment the way he does, no one we’ve seen in the history of sports outside of perhaps Michael Jordan.
The week before Bay Hill, Stewart Cink was crucified in some circles for blowing a four-shot lead with 16 holes to play at the PODS Championship, a loss that left him with only one career win out of the 10 times he’s entered the final round with at least a share of the lead.
Former Masters winner Mike Weir is also 1-of-10 when entering the final round with the lead.
By almost embarrassing contrast, you have Woods, who entered Sunday with a share of the lead, has won 46 of the 49 events in which he’s owned at least a share of the lead entering the final round.
“Tiger just has better mental thoughts than anybody else on the planet right now,” said Bubba Watson, one of Woods’ good friends on Tour.
“It’s funny,” Bryant was saying shortly after Woods killed his chances of getting into the Masters field with a win. “When he shoots 72 here or 70 people are like, ‘Boy, what is wrong with Tiger? He’s terrible.’ I mean, he shoots even par on a tough golf course and he gets ridiculed. It’s amazing.
“People don’t realize how tough it is.”
People don’t realize how relentless Woods craves victory. He’s addicted. And unstoppable.