And the Green Jacket goes to...

The most elite club in the country, or maybe even the world, just inducted one more member to raise their number to 75. Actually, the number is decreased to less than 75 for players like Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods who have won multiple Masters. The Green Jacket is one of the most prized trophies in sports, and it's not even an actual trophy. In fact, does anyone even know what the trophy looks like? In case you didn't, here it is:
To slip on that Green Jacket is an ultimate dream for any professional and aspiring pro golfer. The PGA Championship, The British Open and U.S. Open are all incredible feats but there is something different about winning the Masters. Augusta National, the most historic golf course in the United States with the most elite members founded by Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts is still a "men's only" golf club. Some say it's sexist but others call it tradition. Every year people wait for this weekend to arrive and if you're lucky enough you just might get tickets to witness it first hand.

The events begin with the ever entertaining Par 3 contest where past champions and those playing that year play the Par 3 9-hole course. It's a time for the players to let loose and relax before the opening round. Often players will have their kids or entire family caddy for them and many of which will have them putt for them. Unlike any other golf tournament, the goal is not to have the lowest score. Why you ask? because in the 41 years since the contest was established no player has won the contest and then gone on to win the Masters that same year. Talk about a great chance to purposely goof around and miss 2 ft putts. Once the fun is over, it's game time. All focus is put on the treacherous weekend that is known as the Masters.

Thursday's opening round did not disappoint, much like the first round of the NCAA tournament this year. Lots of great golf. Birdies, long drives, chip-ins, you name it but there was also a lot of missed fairways, bogeys, doubles, and even triples. That's what any golf tournament will do to someone but when it's the Masters it seems like every mistake is multiplied by 10. This years tournament was dominated by the younger generation of up and coming pros. Right out of the gate Rory McIlroy was in control of the course shooting a 65 in the first round and not slowing down anytime soon with a 69-70 Friday and Saturday. With experience players like past champion Angel Cabrerra and KJ Choi still in the hunt it was anyone's jacket. It's okay to say you thought McIlroy was going to win, going into the final round it seemed that way. Even going into the final 9 holes he was holding strong. Then everything changed. Let's start with the other players before we get to McIlroy's final 9 holes.

Was this going to finally be Tiger's redemption win? With his -5 under charge on the front 9 it sure seemed so. Watching him hit the ball it seemed as though the eye of Tiger was back but with 120 putts he wasn't going to win. Despite his -6 round of the day, it wasn't enough with as many people behind him still left to play. He can take away from this weekend that it wasn't a poor showing but he just needs to go back and work on some aspects of his game. The Tiger is well on his way back and I wouldn't be surprised if he won a major this year after his round on Sunday. This weekend wasn't his. Nor was it Jason Day or Adam Scott. Or Geoff Ogilvy or Luke Donald. All of the men atop the leaderboard shared the lead at some point on Sunday going back and for with birdies, pars and bogeys. For a good 4-5 holes it seemed no one was willing to take the chance and go for it. It really became a neck and neck race as 3 round leader Rory McIlroy started to unravel.

For 63 holes the young Irish fellow (21) led the tournament and in the front 9 it seemed as though he was still going to take it all home. But slow and steady wasn't going to win with players charging up the leaderboard. Going into 10 McIlroy had to make a move but when he schanked it far left off the tee everything started to go against him. Saying that it went left was an understatment. He hit the ball into the houses that are right off the course seemingly needing to knock on their door to ask if he could even hit the ball. Once he got it on the fairway it still wasn't going right and he hit his approach behind the scoreboard. Somehow he only tripled the hole, but with his 4 shot lead he had going into the final round he was far from out. This is where mental toughness and experience come into play. If he could rebound he'd still have a chance, but he didn't. He followed his triple with a bogey-double bogey on the next two holes. Put a fork in him, he's done. The only thing he can walk away with from this tournament is the experience and the lesson learned on how he needs to keep it together on the final day. In a post round interview he said it very well "it'll bother me for a few days, but then I'll get over it and move on". Some players never recover from this disastrous of a final round in a major but this will ultimately prove how good he is if he can bounce back.

Charl Schwartzel become the opposite of McIlroy. Going into the final holes of the tournament he was right among the 8-10 players still in contention. All seemingly not ready to take the measures needed to grab hold of the lead. Schwartzel wasn't however. With 4 holes left someone needed to step up or else we were going to see a play off. Jason Day finished birdie birdie to end the weekend at a -12 276 and Adam Scott finished with pars on the last 3 holes for the same score. Schwartzel birdied 15...then again on 16... and once more on 17. With a beautiful straight down the middle tee shot on 18 Schwartzel was in good hands to win as long as he didn't succomb to the pressure and bogey he would be the 2011 Master Champion. Approach shot to the 18th green left him about 15 ft from the hole. 2 putts and he wins by 1 shot, birdies out and wins by 2. Charl lines up the putt, hits the ball, after a millisecond of it seeming to not go in, it rounds the edge of the cup and softly lands at the bottom. Roars from the crowd, arms in the air, it looks and sounds like we have a new masters champion.
the 75th Green Jacket was slipped on by South African Charl Scwartzel to join the club of golfers including Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods, Phil Mickelson, Mark O'Meara and fellow countrymen Gary Player. Schwartzel took what could be the hardest round of the year on the PGA and wrestled it to the ground for a victory. He didn't just sneak by, he took control in the closing holes and never looked back. But now the questions remains, will he become a one and done type winner at the Masters like Mike Weir or will he stand on 18 and wear another Green Jacket? As much as the physicality and talent as it takes to win, golf is more mental than most other sports. If you can tackle the mental game and you've got the talent of the sport, you have what it takes to be successful. As Bobby Jones once said: "Competitive golf is mainly played between a 5 1/2-inch course... the one between your ears". McIlroy did not conquer that element on Sunday but Schwartzel did. He conquered it and then some. Safe to say, the Schwartz was with him.

The Rise and Fall of Tiger Woods

There have been many celebrities to rise to fame, mess up somehow, fall into the ditches. Almost too many to count, but the smart ones will find a way to get themselves from the bottom back to the top. More often than not this road to redemption includes a stint in some sort of rehab, finding religion, reconnecting with family, eating a nice slice of humble pie and sitting back waiting for your chance to shine once again. One of the most recent, and quite possibly the biggest fall is from world renouned golfer, Tiger Woods.


From his first Masters victory in 1997, Tiger came into the golf world as a force to be reckoned with. 1997-2008 Tiger won 14 major championships. The only years he didn't win were 1998, 2003 & 2004. If Tiger was in a tournament, he was a favorite to win, always. Didn't matter what course he was playing on if he was healthy and mentally in the game, it was going to take another players best rounds of their lives to win. Like any other professional athlete Tiger had his tournaments where he didn't play well. We can't all be perfect all the time, no matter who you are. Even Michael Jordan had a bad game every once in a while. The final round of any tournament is where Tiger always thrived. If he wasn't in the lead and was only a few shots back from the lead you were always looking over you shoulder to see if he was there ready to pounce. Unless he was 10 strokes out of the lead with only 4 holes to go, he was rarely considered out of contention. Even in 2008, when battling a knee injury he ended up in a playoff for the US Open Championship with Rocco Mediate. Majority of people I think were rooting for Rocco, mostly to see Tiger as human, but alas he struck again and won. If you see Tiger wearing his traditional red nike shirt and black pants on Sunday's final round, watch out, he's hunting and he'll do anything he can to get you. Following his win, he announced he would be having surgery on his ACL. Did he just win the US Open with a bum knee? Seriously? The rest of 2008 was spent rehabbing and recovering from surgery and in 2009 he came back to the PGA. Despite not winning any major championships, Tiger had a successful year on the PGA, but as fast as he rose to the top, he fell right back down to ground zero.
November 2009 everything in the wonderful world of Tiger crumbled. News broke around Thanksgiving that Tiger had crashed his car when leaving his home in Florida. Reports initially said that he may have been drinking or simply just didn't see where he was going and crashed. But further investigation and digging my many reporters it was found that his wife, Elin, had chased him out of the house after an arguement. What would they have been arguing about to cause such a violent end? After further leaks, it's deiscovered that Tiger had been unfaithful to his wife. Initial reports made it seem as though it was only once or maybe twice, but we quickly found out the number of infidelities was staggering. All reports say different things, but the accounts from those women who have stepped forward about their affairs have said much of the same thing. Most of the women were waitresses, bartenders, some even strippers, were approached by Tiger, struck up conversation, flirting and later some form of sexual interaction. Some of them weren't just a one time thing, a few women claimed to have held relationships with Tiger over the years. I don't really blame Elin for getting as upset as she did. She had every right to be mad and chase him out of the house, I know I would have.

A general population of people who paid attention to Tiger's career over the years seemed to be incredibly surprised at these allegations and eventually truth stories. If we think about it though, is it really that surprising? I can understand where people would be surprised, Tiger and his wife seemed to have a near perfect relationship. They were introduced to one another thanks to Padraig Harrington, their romance started and seemed fantastic even when they married in 2003. She was at all the golf tournaments, even when pregnant with their first child. Tiger's personal life seemed to be just as fantastic as his golf career. He was playing at the top of his game and was untouchable to many players in the world. So for many fans it seemed shocking when all of this blew up overnight. I however, really wasn't. Yes I've always liked Tiger, I love the way he plays the game and he is unquestionably one of the greatest golfers of all time, but are we REALLY surprised by his actions? It seems in recent years more and more sports figures have come out publicly admitting infidelities. They walk around with these God complexes thinking they can do just about anything they want without consequence. You may not get caught right away, but sooner or later something is going to slip and you're doomed. Tiger was no different.

Shortly after the November incident Tiger self-checked himself into sex rehab for his apparent sex addiction. Whether he actually has/had the addiction, we'll never really know, but he went in to get help. After a short stay he was released and apparently cured. He issued statements admitting his infidelity and apologizing for his actions. Admitting he thought because of who he was he could do anything he wanted, that normal rules did not apply to him. Doesn't matter who you are, you are still human and have to abide to every rule that we as "normal" citizens abide by. In another statement Tiger announced his indefinite return to golf, something that everyone watching the train wreck was wondering. Tiger has comeback from many injuries over the years, often stronger than before, but now the question was how was Tiger going to come back from an emotional and mental injury like this. After a few months out of the limelight, losing countless sponsorship and endorsers like Gilette, AT&T and Gatorade, Tiger gave his infamous February 19, 2010 press conference.

I watched this press conference like most of the world, wondering what else he could possibly say to convince us that he's truly sorry for what he did. I have never been so unconvinced in my life. Everything about it seemed fake. He read from a speech that wasn't written by him or if it was his publicist went in after and did some major editing. There was no real emotion in his face or even in his voice. He was a robot. Read a sentence or two, looked up, looked into the camera, and repeated throughout the entire 10 minute speech. If he had something new to say then maybe I'd understand the press conference, but there wasn't. As an avid PGA fan, I was less than impressed. He could have done much better. Even the hug he gave to his mother at the end didn't seem true. I'm not saying he doesn't love his mom but it all just seemed incredibly staged. I don't think he should have gone up there to wing it, I in fact think he shouldn't have had the press conference at all. It was a waste of time and just another reason for him to be in from of the camera trying to apologize for his mistakes. Ultimately Elin filed for divorce. Tiger announced his return to golf in March of 2010. All eyes were watching.

The 2010 Masters would be his returning tournament. No matter the finish, all eyes were going to be on Tiger that weekend. A few things could have happened during that tournament. 1. Tiger would be his usual self. Dominant. He'd come out to play and as usual he'd win. 2. He'd play okay, nothing spectacular, and just get through it. 3. The worst, he would play the worst golf of his career and not even make the cut. What Tiger would show up was the big question on everyones mind. With a first round 68 Tiger was tied for 7th. Not bad a bad start, but how was he going to continue the rest of the weekend. Players fear Tiger when he's in the mix of things, he is never counted out until his last putt on 18 in the final round. Tiger shot 70-70 for the 2nd and 3rd round, solid golf with a few bad holes here and there, but moved up the leader board in a tie for 3rd w/ K.J. Choi. Dangerous heading into the final round for the other top players. Tiger's final round 68 was a good round, but not enough. FInishing T-4th, Tiger's re-debut back into the golf world was over. He seemed to be ready for 2010, much to everyones surprise. He played well, but Phil Mickelson (2010 winner) and a few others just played better. The events from November-February seemed to not phase Tiger at all. Critics, fans, and golfers were ready for Tiger to return back to his normal position on top of every leader board. That didn't happen.

2010 Tiger went home empty completely empty handed in any major tournament at least. Something was still off about Tiger, he didn't have that force that he's had for so many years on the PGA. The "Eye of the Tiger" as you will, was gone. No matter how hard he fought nothing was working in his favor. More and more players discovered his weaknesses and started to use it to their advantages. Focusing on their game and beating him. Tiger once known for being one of the best putters in the world, was missing putts left and right. The ball could not go where he wanted it to. Tiger has always been an emotional player, not afraid to yell at his caddy, at himself but this year may have been the worst. With good reason. The once best golfer in the world wasn't winning, anything. Anyone would be frustrated. Nothing he did could get him out of this slump. I think a lot of people throughout the year started to have some sympathy for him. They felt for him in his struggles, but ultimately there really shouldn't be sympathy given to him. He brought all of this on himself. It all could have been prevented if he just stayed faithful to his wife. He has no one to blame but himself.

The world is watching now in 2011. When will the great Tiger Woods reclaim his top spot in the world. It's going to take more than just one tournament. If however he is able to come back from this disaster and play at his best for another 5, 10, 25 years, he would undoubtedly be the best golfer of all time. It's all just a matter of time. How long will it be before he wins another major tournament? How long can he mentally play the game without winning? Will he retire if he doesn't win again in 2011? We just have to wait and see. 2011 already looks bleak for Tiger as he's already lost to #16 seed Thomas Bjorn of Accenture Match Play, something the old Tiger would never let happen unless he was playing against Superman.

Will Tiger strike again? Stay tuned.