Hey, Tiger! If You Need Some Help With That Comeback, I’m Available!
- Details
- Category: Inside Golf
- Published: 2017-12-28
As Hard As It Was To Believe, After Three Days Of Play, My Name Topped The Leader Board In The Bad Division At The 2017 West Valley Media Classic In Phoenix. (Photo/Gord Montgomery)
A Commentary by Gord Montgomery (iG)
BUCKEYE, Arizona — I’m generally a humble kind of guy, not one to blow my own horn or offer advice on a subject I struggle to perfect ... like the game of golf. However, given a recent turn of events I figure, humbly speaking, I could lend a hand to this guy named Tiger who had a bit of trouble in his return to competitive golf.
Now I understand the difficulty of coming off a layoff of over 300 days to compete in, and hopefully win, a golf tournament. After all, I waited somewhere around 13,500 days between competitive rounds and, again humbly speaking, I posted a much better result than the famed PGA star. So maybe, just maybe, I can offer him some advice on how to overcome a lengthy layoff
Truth be told, I certainly didn’t make anywhere near the money the Tiger made in his return. After all, I’m an amateur and can only accept prizes, not cash. But at the same time, my prize was for finishing first in my return, not T9 as Tiger did. Interesting enough, we both took on a field with the same number of players, 17.
My dive back into competitive golf — other than the odd Texas Scramble event — was at the West Valley Media Classic, a fun three-day tournament that played host to golf writers from across the U.S. and Canada. The event’s broken down via handicap into three flights: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I’m not quite good enough to be cast into the top grouping, nor wobbly enough to be in the last, so I slotted into the middle battleground, the Bad.
Again, I’m not saying this is the sort of grouping Tiger needed to be in at his return, but fair is fair and my index set me into the middle division where from the first day to the last strange things happened.
Maybe Some Comeback Advice From Myself Can Help This Former Champion Regain His Form Of Old. All He Has To Do Is Call. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)
One of the most intriguing/confusing parts of my tournament was the scoring system. As a newbie to the WVMC I didn’t understand how points were gained but was told, time and time again, no one really does. The points are award at the end of each round, to a maximum of 10 each day. So, to see 8.5 behind my name the first night, and sitting T2, I was shocked. Sure, I had played relatively well in the Shamble event, where I was able to take advantage of some long tee balls by my three playing partners (everyone tees off and you use the best of the drives, then play your own ball from there into the hole is how this format works).
I know that’s not the way that other guy plays his tourney golf, but hey, I’m coming off a rather lengthy layoff so cut me some slack here!
I ended up with four natural birdies and a net eagle on the day thanks to my index, so that, and those longer-than-I-can-hit-drives (although I think we used at least two of mine) aided in my finish at the Verrado Golf Course, that played out to just around 6,600 yards for my flight.
The second day was a 2-man scramble, and again I was paired with a long hitter which was a huge help considering we played another big course, the Wigwam Gold, which measured out at 6,800 yards. While we didn’t produce the lowest score of the day in carding a minus-4 68, I suddenly found myself vaulted into top spot, after earning 9.5 points there.
Again, I have no idea how those points were earned, but at this point, leading my flight, I wasn’t asking for an explanation or a recount.
The last day proved to be an awful one for me, and maybe here I could have Tiger give me some advice on how to avoid a catastrophic collapse. I mean, I helped him with his struggles didn’t I? You know, a fair-is-fair tradeoff?
At the Victory Course at Verrado I was anything but victorious, carding a ‘superb’ 98. A large part of that was because I couldn’t sink a putt, couldn’t chip and just never got settled in on this new track. This course on this day was played to around 6,000 yards, so length wasn’t an issue ... my game was!
And if you want to know how bad my day really was out there, our cart ran out of power trying to go up a hill. Now, I wouldn’t have taken that route myself, but the driver decided the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, which resulted in us going straight up an incline ... and then sliding backwards. He rammed on the brakes, locking them up, so we sat there for five minutes, in the middle of a fairway, wondering how we were going to get out of there. Fortunately, or unfortunately considering the way I continued to play, the cart soon returned to normal and we resumed our round.
As For How Bad My Last Day Of Tournament Play Was, This Picture Says It All: A Course Attendant Starts Down The Slippery Slope Our Cart Stalled Out On, To Get Us Back Up And Running. Thankfully I Can Say I Wasn't Driving ... And Yes, At One Time We Were At What Seemed A 90 Degree Angle On The Hill. (Photo/Gord Montgomery)
Needless to say, I didn’t earn any points that day (not hard to figure that scoring out!) and so I figured at least one, if not more people likely passed me on the final day. So imagine my surprise when that night I heard my name called out as the winner of the Bad division!
Thus, I figure since the Tiger has done away with Hank Haney (and no, I wouldn’t write a tell-all book about our time together should he take my offer) and Sean Foley among others, why not give me a shot?
After all, I do now know something about being successful coming off a long layoff.
My number’s in the phone book if you’re looking to reach me Tiger ... and I’m always available!