All is still and quiet on the TV in our living room. A golfer starts his backswing to the top, transitions down quickly building power and speed, THWAP! The ball flies up and out of frame leaving me with no idea where it could be headed. But wait, the camera angle cuts to a close up of the golfer’s face. His eyes look up to his ball, then shift down to his target, a little lean forward… he likes it. Camera cuts to an empty green for a split second of swelling anticipation, till… a little white ball drops from the sky like a banned lawn dart sticking 5 feet from the hole. The crowd erupts. The golfer? Tiger Woods of course. And in 1997, watching him on TV, I erupted too.
My dad had put The Masters on TV while we were doing whatever we were doing around the house that Sunday. We were a sports family with Saturday’s booked end to end with baseball or soccer games leaving Sundays usually free. However, we weren't a golf family and watching golf wasn’t any sort of normal pastime. In fact, up to that point the most any of us had golfed was in the miniature form. But still, my Dad decided the Masters was indeed probably the most interesting thing on TV that April Sunday. And it was with those unexpected “face to face” moments with Tiger, when golf all of the sudden became something I wanted to be a part of.
Up till then, watching golf on TV was a mentally passive “wait and see” experience. Today with the technology of ball tracking, the broadcast is much more interesting and “along for the ride” type of viewing. With a hole’s layout/map down in the corner and a tracking line of the ball flight or a tracking graphic right out into the air from the tee box, the viewer can react in real time with the golfer during the entire life of the stroke, not just the end result when the ball settles. But before all these tracking graphics it was… a swing… ball darting off screen… cut to a camera zooming into the ball in the air (no idea where it might be going)... then zoom back out pivoting down to a wide shot of where the ball should land (usually)... a slow zoom back to the ball's final resting place… cut back to golfer already walking down the fairway missing any emotional reaction to the shot (usually none anyways).
I don’t know how often they cut to a golfer’s face while the ball was in the air before Tiger, but he seemed to be the one who used that camera time the best, and we noticed because we all ended up rooting for him. During those few seconds he gave us all the information we didn’t know we needed. His eyes, maybe a mutter to himself, or the infamous club twirl, all built our excitement of what the shot could possibly be. Even the negative reactions were entertaining, a club slam, a “dammit Tiger”, or how he’d let go of the club with one hand just after making contact. Because all of the sudden it was an “Oh no! How bad is it?” unnerving kind of anticipation. We watched his reactions, anticipated the results, and more times than not, were treated to the ultimate payoff when he’d land the ball closer than anyone else had all day (not to mention how he’d then drain almost every putt) and that’s why he was the greatest, the G.O.A.T.
But I think why we loved him was how he gave us his unfiltered reactions, his brief personal story of the shot and then would deliver payoff after payoff after payoff. So thank you, Tiger. For it was in those first Sunday afternoon moments with you that made me fascinated in starting my relationship with this beautiful game of golf.
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