Older Vs. New

This year has been deemed a battle of the greats in golf.  Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, the two best players in the sport, going at it almost every week, have not really lived up to the hype quite yet.  McIlroy has yet to make a cut in a tournament, and Tiger has won an event already but Rory was not in the field that week. 

Despite what happened to Tiger a couple years ago, he is still one of the best, and easily the funnest golfer to watch.  Rory is quickly ascending into that category as well, with his easy swing and happy demeanor on the course he will soon want to be watched by everyone... well not everyone, but golf fans anyway.  Take the match play that occurred at the end of February.  Both Woods and McIlroy were ousted in the first round by their perspective opponents, and the tournament changed from both a television and live point of view.  Myself I find that golf tournaments are not as fun to watch on television when Tiger is not in the field or not close enough to the leader that he is on TV.  His charisma and talent make it so much funner to watch, and all the flashbacks and reminiscing the announcers do about Tigers' younger days is really fun.  For the people actually at the golf course to watch and for the golf course itself, it hurts attendance when Woods is not in the field.  If you have seen the crowds that he draws at every tournament, the people in charge of the course are probably very upset if Tiger misses the cut or goes home early.

The same is becoming true for young Rory McIlroy.  He may not be as emotional or intense as Tiger, the talent is undeniable, I mean he isnt the number one player in the world for no reason.  Unfortunately he has has not had the best start to 2013 but since Rory has only played in four tournaments so far this year I am not worried about him at all.

Luckily for everyone Woods and McIlroy get along well together so there is no animosity when they play on the course together.  This commercial says it all I think.

Aprils Master's

This past weekend was the Master's and while golf may never seem like a controversial sport, there were plenty of issues that made this one of the best Master's in a while.
Now I am sure that everyone has heard about the Tiger Woods ordeal for the last year, and frankly I am tired of hearing about, so there is no reason for me to recap it. But as for this weekend this was Wood's first tournament back since he went into rehab. And despite all the criticism from the public and the press, he went and finished fourth. This should be considered a monumental occasion for him, he played well and the reception from the fans was much more supportive than he thought. You can use this link too see the interview that Tiger gave to the media a few days before the tournament started http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters10/news/story?id=5057494.
Despite the scrutiny for his off the field issues, Tiger put all that behind him and went out and played four good rounds of golf, and for this he should be commended. Now I am not saying that what he has done in the recent past should be forgotten because he is playing golf again, but for the pressure he was under he did an amazing job just playing golf.

Now the other issue has to do with the winner Phil Mickelson and how he won this tournament despite the fact that both his wife and mother are fighting cancer, this link to the ESPN article http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters10/news/story?id=5075606. This just shows the kind of character that Lefty has, his wife wanted him to play in the Master's, and he went out and won the tournament. He was able to push the thoughts of his suffering wife and mother out of his head and strictly concentrate on winning. Now this may sound insensitive, but just remember that he was encouraged to play, but you know that it was still weighing heavily on his mind the whole weekend. This is a great victory for Mickelson and his family.