SAN ANTONIO — In life, time is undefeated.
Right?
For athletes, a career begins with an unknown timetable and that uncertainty is why the Masters meant so much to so many Sunday afternoon.
Tiger did not just captivate the country, he corralled the world in front of a TV screen and carried everyone on his back--a back that has been in shambles for six years. A spine that has been fused together, not so he can try and play the game of golf again, but so he can live a comfortable life. That surgery happened roughly two years ago and he started swinging a club again 18 months ago. As a man in his early 40's, he is not supposed to be here.
Did you doubt Tiger? I'm man enough to say I did. I'm man enough to say I told everyone to let go of the past because the game of golf needs a new face. The glory days are over. He's a shell of himself. Let it go.
I was wrong.
For at least one Sunday in April. the clock didn't just stop, it went backwards.
Tiger needs three more championships to catch Jack Nicklaus for the most major wins in the sport. Plenty of publications will push this headline and it will drive us right back to the TV screens, where we all were 11 years ago when he won his No. 14 title and it was, supposedly, a foregone conclusion the record would inevitably be broken.
If it happens, great, but it doesn't really matter.
Right?
Nothing in his career can top this moment. It is a moment where hope crushed the clock. It is where a bevy of blind believers were validated to support such a crazy comeback story.
No hyperbole, grown men and women all over the world were crying because they could jump back inside the memory vaults, pull out a piece of history and watch it right on their screen. They got to relive something they never truly knew would or could happen again.
It's closure.
For Tiger Woods, he earned his first Masters title in 1997 and hugged his father after that victory. In 2019, he won the Masters again, and now, he's the father hugging his kids. Plenty of parents grabbed their own kids and had similar moments. Usually we have to build bridges to the past through stories or pictures or YouTube clips.
But not this time. The bridge is the present.
That is such a rare feat. Not just in sports, but in life.
No matter what happens in the future, Tiger can leave the game on his terms and fans will be able to accept that fact because we all know time will win in the end.
It is just nice to know time is not always undefeated.