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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Special Report -> 
Tiger Woods, making a stirring comeback in life and golf
    2019-04-19  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

THE sex scandal. The mugshot. The debilitating injuries.

Tiger Woods certainly didn’t plan it this way.

That only made his 15th major title all the more rewarding.

Or, as Woods put it not long after tapping in a gimme putt April 14 for a one-stroke victory at the Masters: “Overwhelming.”

For so much of his life, the outline that Woods and his hard-driving father, Earl, had so carefully laid out went just as they intended.

But when Woods captured his fifth victory at Augusta National — and his first major championship in 11 years — he let out a scream that reflected the depths of his personal and professional hell.

“Just unreal, to be honest with you,” said an emotional Woods, who possibly came as close to crying as he ever has in a post-round news conference.

“You know, just the whole tournament has meant so much to me over the years. Coming here in ’95 for the first time, and being able to play as an amateur; winning in [’97], and then come full circle 22 years later … to be able to do it again, and just the way it all transpired today.”

It was a monumental triumph for Woods, a come-from-behind victory for a player who had had so much go wrong on the course and off after his personal life began to come apart on Thanksgiving night in 2009.

At 43, Woods became the second-oldest winner of the Masters, behind Jack Nicklaus, who won here in 1986 at age 46 and who holds the record for victories in major tournaments, 18. And Woods’s victory immediately reverberated beyond golf and, for that matter, sports.

The win even led to a rare moment of agreement between U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama. “What a fantastic life comeback for a really great guy!” Trump said on Twitter. “To come back and win the Masters after all the highs and lows is a testament to excellence, grit and determination,” Obama posted.

After prevailing April 14, Woods is back in the pantheon of the sports world’s biggest stars, back on a level with LeBron James, Serena Williams and Lionel Messi, back in a space he entered with his first Masters victory in 1997, when he was a skinny 21-year-old who declared “Hello World” in a classic Nike commercial.

“Ahh, it fits,” a beaming Woods said, when he tugged on that famous green jacket for the first time in 1997, as seen in a photo of Bobby Jones staring over his left shoulder in the Butler Cabin.

For so many years, everything fit so neatly.

From his astonishing swings on “The Mike Douglas Show” at the age of 2 to becoming the first player to win three straight U.S. Amateur titles to capturing the Masters not long after his 21st birthday by a whopping 12 strokes, the Tiger Way was pure perfection, generating millions for him and his sponsors.

He was the first African-American — Woods is also half Thai — to win golf’s most exalted championship.

He married a Swedish model, had two beautiful children and kept adding one major title after another, capturing his 14th by his early 30s, on a seemingly unstoppable quest to surpass Nicklaus as the greatest champion of them all.

Then, just like that, it all fell apart. His marriage. His reputation. His body.

The years between Woods’ 14th and 15th victories in major tournaments included an immense number of setbacks, although his struggles actually date to the 2006 death of his father, who was his soulmate and putting guru.

He had major reconstructive surgery on his left knee shortly after hobbling to what had been his most recent major championship, a playoff victory in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

Turns out, that was only a minor prelude to all the agony that was to come, so much of it self-inflicted.

While everyone was celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday in 2009, Woods crashed his SUV into a tree and a fire hydrant outside his Florida home. That led to reports of a myriad of extramarital affairs, wrecking the facade he and his father had constructed of the dedicated athlete and perfect family man. Overnight, one of the world’s most famous people became a punchline.

Woods checked into a Mississippi clinic for more than a month, apparently to deal with some sort of sex addiction. Most of his major sponsors fled for cover. Elin Nordegren divorced her cheating husband.

In Woods’ return to golf at the Masters, he received a tongue-lashing from Augusta National chairman Billy Payne for his lack of moral scruples and for the poor example he set for America’s youth.

A far cry from the greeting he got April 14 in the interview room from green-jacketed moderator Craig Heatley, “Welcome back, Tiger. Or more appropriately, welcome home.”

If Woods thought things couldn’t get any worse back in 2010, he was mistaken.

His body continued to betray him, leading to one surgery after another in an attempt to alleviate the unyielding pain. His back was such a mess that it became a struggle just to walk, or sleep, or play with his kids. Woods faced the very real possibility of never playing golf again, not even for fun.

“So where is the light at the end of the tunnel?” he asked ruefully in 2015, a few weeks before Christmas. “I don’t know.”

At that point, Woods conceded, any further achievements on the golf course would be mere “gravy.”

The fourth surgery on his back was something of a last resort. He wanted to play golf again at the highest level, but he probably would have settled for a lifting of the pain and the ability to lead somewhat of a normal life.

About six weeks later, he sank into another abyss when police found him asleep — or passed out — behind the wheel of his running car in the middle of the night. He was arrested and briefly jailed. His mugshot showed the face of a man whose life had seemingly spiraled out of control.

Woods blamed it on a bad combination of pain medication, pleaded guilty to reckless driving and entered a diversion program.

While he worked — again — to restore some order to his personal life, Woods began to realize that the fusion on his back had resulted in something of a medical miracle. His swing got stronger and stronger, more and more like the Tiger of old. He kept dreading a return of the excruciating, piercing pain, but it stayed away.

Physically and mentally fit, he contended at the last two majors of 2018, claimed a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team and won the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake — his first victory of any kind in more than five years, setting off a wild, course-storming celebration from the gallery.

“That confirmed I could still win out here against the best players,” Woods said. “That gave me a lot of confidence going into this year. I wanted to keep building on it. I wanted to get my mind and body peaking for Augusta.”

Woods’ mother, Kultida, and his two children — his 10-year-old son, Charlie Axel, and his 11-year-old daughter, Sam Alexis — were among the first to greet him once his triumph was complete April 14.

Neither of his children had been born when Woods basically ruled the sport. They essentially knew of their father’s exploits from photographs and other people’s memories.

Woods said that when he was down, he gained strength from what he described as his children’s “infectious happiness.”

“To have my kids here, it’s come full circle,” he said after April 14’s final round. “My dad was here in 1997, and now I’m the dad with two kids here.”

Woods’s children were also with him last summer when he saw the first real glimmers of hope in his comeback — at the British Open. They saw him play his way into contention over the first three days of that tournament and then briefly take the lead in the final round on his way to a tie for sixth. Afterward, he told his children that he hoped that they were proud of how he fought and refused to give up.

At the 16th tee of April 14’s final round, a familiar face and friend — the record-setting swimmer Michael Phelps — was standing close enough to touch Woods.

Phelps, who had spent two months in a treatment center in 2014 after trying to self-medicate with alcohol, became an informal counselor to Woods after the 2017 painkiller episode.

“When I tapped the [final] putt in — I don’t know what I did,’’ Woods said. “I know I screamed.”

And as he then put on the winner’s green jacket for a fifth time, he said something everyone knew but might have forgotten: “It fits.”(SD-Agencies)

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