(By John Feinstein) During the 1992 presidential campaign, James Carville, who managed the message for Bill Clinton, kept a sign on his desk that has since become the rallying cry for almost anyone and everyone who has run for President: “The economy, stupid.”
Carville’s point was both simple and direct: When you cut through all the rhetoric of a campaign, it is the state of the economy – and what a candidate proposes to do about it – that decides elections.
Perhaps Tiger Woods should consider hiring Carville.
When you cut to the heart of the train wreck that Woods’ golf game is right now, it isn’t about a two-way miss, taking an inch off his driver, looking at old video, whether his back hurts, his knees are bothering him or whether he needs yet another new teacher.
It’s about what’s between his ears, stupid.
There’s no doubting that Woods is as physically gifted as anyone who has ever played. But what made him so unbelievably dominant from that first Masters win in 1997 to his last major victory at the 2008 U.S. Open was his mind.
Woods was smarter, tougher, meaner and more confident than anyone. What’s more, the guys who were trying to compete with him KNEW he was smarter, tougher and meaner. He made every putt that mattered, found ways to get up and down that weren’t possible and, on days when his golf swing wasn’t what he wanted, still figured out how to score.
Remember Rocco Mediate’s reaction when Woods made the 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole on Sunday to create the playoff at Torrey Pines in 2008?
“I knew he was going to make it,” Rocco stated.
Everyone knew he was going to make it because that’s who Tiger Woods was in those days.
Of all the remarkable rounds Woods has played in his career, those who witnessed it will tell you that his second round at the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills might have been as impressive as anything they’ve ever seen. Woods was in his Hank Haney swing transition and was having trouble finding the planet off the tee. If it were possible to have a three-way miss going, he would have had it. No one had any idea where the ball might be going when he took the club back.
Woods shot 1-under 69 that day. He finished T-17 that week but the argument can be made that any other player hitting the ball that poorly wouldn’t have sniffed the cut. Or, if they had somehow made the weekend, an 85 might very well have shown up on Saturday.
That would never happen to Woods back then. On the final day of that Open, when the USGA lost the greens, (stroke average was 78.7 and no one broke par) the still-struggling Woods shot 76. In those conditions, the Woods of today might not have broken 90.
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