Once Again, Tiger Woods Reminds Us He's Human

zz Dan Hauser
Posted by zz Dan Hauser
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Published in Golf

Photo courtesy of Zachary Blobner

For so many years, we all would have had better luck getting into Fort Knox then getting into Tiger Woods' mind and finding out what he really was thinking. A human PR machine, Woods was so calculated in everything he ever said to the media you would have thought that he practiced the answers before each media session.

Over the past few years, Woods has opened up a little more. 2015 specifically has been the most transparent I think any of us that have followed his career has ever seen him. He opened up early in 2015 and shared his struggles with his new swing patterns and what his plans were with new "swing consultant" Chris Como. Then, when he announced he was taking a leave to get his game fixed, he was open an honest when it came to what exactly was wrong and what needed to be fixed.

Who couldn't forget at the Masters when Woods was basically walking around the range, handing out hugs to anyone that was in an arm’s length distance to him.

All that being said, I don't think I've ever seen Tiger as honest and vulnerable then when he met with the media for an abbreviated session yesterday after his practice round at The Players Championship.

The Jupiter Island resident started off his session with the media yesterday talking about the deaths of Charlie Sifford and Calvin Peete, African American golfers who largely paved the way for Woods to be able to play on the PGA Tour and men he looked up to growing up. He shared with us that his own son Charlie is actually named after Sifford.

Woods also shared how the past few days have been so tough for him. In addition to the anniversary of his father's death being May 3rd (the elder Woods passed May 3rd, 2006), Woods and his girlfriend of three years, Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn, split up on Sunday.

Vonn had become a major presence in Woods’ life. She could regularly be seen on the course cheering him on. She even walked with Tiger's two children Sam and Charlie during the Masters Par 3 Contest. Off it she spent a lot of time around the children.

“Obviously it does affect me,” Woods said Tuesday. “It is tough. There's no doubt. I'm not going to lie about that. It is tough. This three-day window is really hard. I haven't slept. It's been -- these three days, May 3 and through the fifth, today, is just brutal on me, and then with obviously what happened on Sunday, it just adds to it.”

Quotes like that once again remind us that Woods is, in fact human, just like the rest of us. For so long Tiger shut the world down and just focused on winning golf tournaments. Now, as he gets older and maybe even more mature, he has begun to open up and show us who the man behind the mask really is.

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