KIDWCKED
09-28-2010, 11:21 PM
c/p from foxsports by the a/p.
Newport, Wales
In once critiquing an up-and-coming young golfer, Tiger Woods concluded in a candid moment that all the player needed was a little "prick juice...
It's an unfortunate concept but, sadly, a truth, too, that in golf, nice guys aren't always as successful as their talent suggests.
Adam Scott is a nice guy, as are Freddie Couples and Sean O'Hair. But are they too nice to step on people's throats Sunday afternoons?
Phil Mickelson ruffles the feathers of his peers, as could Vijay Singh. Jack Nicklaus wasn't too friendly when a championship was on the line, and let's not even talk about Ben Hogan.
And be sure that Tiger Woods earned his stripes in that league, too.
"No matter how friendly you are with him, he wants to slit your throat on the golf course," said O'Hair after Woods beat him last year to win at Bay Hill.
O'Hair was perplexed because he thought that he and Woods were friends. And they are ... just not on the back nine on Sunday with a title on the line.
But that part of Woods' makeup has been conspicuously absent this year.
The reason's obvious: he's trying to be nice, trying to win back hearts and minds after being disgraced.
It's certainly not the major reason his game in 2010 was at its lowest ebb. With his marriage unraveling, it's doubtful he cared all that much about golf.
But now that he's picking up the pieces and trying to once more scale the mountain, can he do it without that "prick juice?"
He tried to warn us way back at Augusta that there was a price to pay for trying to be "more respectful of the game and acknowledge the fans."
"I'm actually going to try and obviously not get as hot when I play. But then again, when I'm not as hot, I'm not going to be as exuberant, either. I can't play one without the other," he said.
And he hasn't really been either.
All year he's been lacking emotion, but if there's one event where that can all change, where Woods can go back to being the cold-hearted assassin he once was and Americans will love him for it, it's a Ryder Cup played on foreign soil.
Newport, Wales
In once critiquing an up-and-coming young golfer, Tiger Woods concluded in a candid moment that all the player needed was a little "prick juice...
It's an unfortunate concept but, sadly, a truth, too, that in golf, nice guys aren't always as successful as their talent suggests.
Adam Scott is a nice guy, as are Freddie Couples and Sean O'Hair. But are they too nice to step on people's throats Sunday afternoons?
Phil Mickelson ruffles the feathers of his peers, as could Vijay Singh. Jack Nicklaus wasn't too friendly when a championship was on the line, and let's not even talk about Ben Hogan.
And be sure that Tiger Woods earned his stripes in that league, too.
"No matter how friendly you are with him, he wants to slit your throat on the golf course," said O'Hair after Woods beat him last year to win at Bay Hill.
O'Hair was perplexed because he thought that he and Woods were friends. And they are ... just not on the back nine on Sunday with a title on the line.
But that part of Woods' makeup has been conspicuously absent this year.
The reason's obvious: he's trying to be nice, trying to win back hearts and minds after being disgraced.
It's certainly not the major reason his game in 2010 was at its lowest ebb. With his marriage unraveling, it's doubtful he cared all that much about golf.
But now that he's picking up the pieces and trying to once more scale the mountain, can he do it without that "prick juice?"
He tried to warn us way back at Augusta that there was a price to pay for trying to be "more respectful of the game and acknowledge the fans."
"I'm actually going to try and obviously not get as hot when I play. But then again, when I'm not as hot, I'm not going to be as exuberant, either. I can't play one without the other," he said.
And he hasn't really been either.
All year he's been lacking emotion, but if there's one event where that can all change, where Woods can go back to being the cold-hearted assassin he once was and Americans will love him for it, it's a Ryder Cup played on foreign soil.