PGA kickoff…Tiger even better

The PGA tour’s first event teed off on Thursday in Hawaii with little fanfare as the college football season had it’s so called championship game (Can I get a Playoff, sorry wrong blog DC has it covered) and the NFL playoffs in full swing. The first event includes only the winners from last year and is routinely skipped by golf’s two biggest names Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Golf’s biggest 4 events, the majors, come in the middle of the year and is what all the great players plan their year around. This year Tiger has a legitimate excuse for skipping the Mercedes-Benz Championship as he is recovering from surgery. After one of the most incredible wins in sports history at the 2008 U.S. Open Tiger had season ending knee surgery. The surgery was a long time coming as he was playing with pain for years and it was gradually getting worse. The knee kept Tiger from being able to post up on his left side and make the swing he wanted to. Being the player that he is Tiger found a work around it and was still able to dominate golf. After the surgery no time frame was set for his return and some were concerned he might miss the masters but now he has said he is on track for a February return. So now the scary part for the other guys on tour is that he says the knee feels better than it has in a very long time. As he proved in the Open he is one of the most mentally strong athletes ever and now that the lingering pain in the knee is gone so what can we expect from Tiger now? Well it is easy to predict greatness from the greatest golfer we have ever seen but I am going to put the bar real high for him this year. Paddy Harrington broke his hold on player of the year when he won the two majors Tiger missed so he pulled on the real superman’s cape. I expect nothing less than the Grand Slam. It also happens he is just four majors short of catching Jack Nicklaus’s record for major wins. Seems everything is set up the way Tiger wants it. Sit back and watch one of the greatest athletes in his prime make a run at history. Better yet go to any tournament he is playing in and see it in person as golf allows you more access to players than any other sport. When I am old I can tell my grandkids that I saw MJ shoot it, Gretzky skate, and Tiger hit it.

JD is a contributor to The Sports Information Hub and can be contacted at jdthesportsguy@gmail.com