I was definitely in the “Tiger Brigade” when I was younger. Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods was gobbling up tournaments like Pac Man, and each week, whether he won or not, was a must-see invitation to watch him pull a shot or two out of nowhere.
But golf is like any other sport. People come and people go. The Jack Nicklauses or Arnold Palmers, or for that matter Tigers, might come along once in a generation.
This brings us to Scottie Scheffler . . .
The man is generally acknowledged as the No. 1 golfer in the world. He just won the British Open (or, as it is known everywhere else, “The Open”). The 29-year-old Scheffler is on one of those rides that made Woods a household name by the time he was 24.
But he seems to take all this fame with a hefty grain of salt – not in the sense that he doesn’t care, but in the sense that no matter how good it feels at the moment, life soon takes over and shoves the accomplishment into the background.
That’s what Scheffler said last Tuesday, in the runup to The Open. It was a roundabout and extremely unhostile way of reminding fans that we all have lives that not only include our professions, but also define who we are beyond our professions.
You may have seen Scheffler’s little boy trying to run to him after he clinched the victory. You don’t think that in a perfect world, Scheffler wouldn’t love to spend twice as much time with his 1-year-old son as he’s able to?
The crux of what Scheffler said last week was that you may experience a brief moment of exhilaration over winning a tournament before all the other aspects of life creep in.
You have to make travel plans for the next tournament. You notice you were pulling a few drives slightly, so you have to correct that flaw before you really start hooking them. It may take two days on the driving range to fix that – two days you don’t get to spend with your wife and children.
And speaking of which, I cannot think of a more stressful way to maintain a marriage than to be a pro athlete, especially if you have kids too. All you have to do is look at Tom Brady and Gisele to see how that worked out. The two of them became their own multinational corporation. Yet, she wanted a full-time husband and he wanted to keep playing.
It seems pretty obvious that Scheffler doesn’t want to fall into that trap.
I’ve wondered sometimes whether an athlete’s laser-focused concentration can survive crumbling marriages, custody fights and other examples of life’s major distractions. Athletes are people – some can handle these issues better than others.
In that disastrous Red Sox season of 2011, one of the big reasons why the team unraveled like a cheap suit is that the pitching collapsed. And John Lackey collapsed more than most.
Come to find out, Lackey’s elbow was toast (he had to have Tommy John surgery) and so was his marriage. Right before he had to pitch a huge game against the Yankees, a publication outed his marriage problems and, never one to hide emotion, Lackey was furious and fuming. Then, he went out and pitched the game of his life. He experienced the highs and lows of the business all in the same week.
Athletes of Scheffler’s caliber have to clear the same hurdles we do, and they have to meet those challenges as they come along. But where you or I can chalk up a bad day at the office as just that – a bad day – Scheffler and his ilk have no such luxury. You get the yips in a major, the whole world knows and remembers. You let a ball go through your legs at a crucial moment in the World Series and it’s in the first paragraph of your obituary. Your divorce becomes late-night TV fodder.
I don’t think it’s that Scheffler fails to appreciate his accomplishments, or that he has soured on the life of the exceptionally-talented and famous.
But his words are gentle reminders that it’s not all glitz and glamor on the pro tour. It can be a tough life.
