Published on : 23/02/2021 – 22:36Modified : 23/02/2021 – 22:34
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Los Angeles (AFP)
At 45, Tiger Woods, victim of a road accident near Los Angeles on Tuesday, remains considered one of the best golfers in history, even though his last victory dates back to October 2019, an eternity for the “Tiger” who reigned supreme on the greens for a long time.
A given time lost for golf, Woods succeeded during the year 2019 one of the most improbable comebacks in the history of the sport.
As often in his career – and even in his life – the American had not done things by halves.
He ended an eleven-year Grand Slam shortage by winning the prestigious Augusta Masters in April 2019, thanks to a series of incredible blows and his steel mind. As in its prime.
Six months later, he won his 82nd PGA Tour title at the Zozo Championship in Japan.
His almost unparalleled record includes 15 Grand Slam titles, three less than his mentor Jack Nicklaus, and 82 PGA titles, his compatriot Sam Snead’s record equaled.
However, when he returned to the greens in January 2018, after several failed attempts and four back operations, including arthrodesis, a painful fusion of vertebrae, Woods doubted.
– Unable to walk –
A time unable to walk, fallen back into the depths of the world rankings, depressed, he even considered putting his clubs away and putting an end to his career.
But Woods is a decidedly separate athlete.
He is the one who took golf to a new dimension. One of those very rare sportsmen, like Roger Federer in tennis, who alone embody their discipline, with an aura that goes beyond the hushed surroundings of golf.
When he arrived on the golf world in the mid-90s, he aroused extraordinary interest from the start. Young, mixed (born of a black father and an Asian mother), he dusted off his sport.
His more aggressive game, his physical approach to a discipline still reluctant in gyms, his passion that he does not hesitate to express … A cocktail that immediately fascinates. And above all, he wins, quickly and a lot.
– Infidelities –
A phenomenon of precocity, he became the youngest winner of the Masters, the youngest world number one, the youngest golfer to win 50 tournaments on the North American circuit.
Between 1996 and 2008, he outrageously dominated his sport, pocketed 14 Grand Slam titles and took golf to another planet. Hers.
Then the machine stops. In 2009, the revelation of his numerous infidelities unsettled the one believed at the time to be unshakeable and created a resounding scandal which the celebrity press revived. He separates from his wife, the Swedish model Elin Nordegren, with whom he had two children.
Forced by its sponsors, including sports giant Nike, which makes it one of its leading figures, to make a public apology, its image is seriously crumbling. His career had a first stop.
He falls but does not give up. It will take four years to find the chair of world No.1 and, in 2013, manages to become the highest paid sportsman in the world again according to the economic magazine Forbes, which estimates the total of more than 1.5 billion dollars. his earnings since his professional debut in 1996.
It is then his physique which abandons him. Hit in the back, he was operated on for the first time in 2014. His swing is breaking down, his mind falters and his level worries.
He re-feeds the news section again by being arrested, asleep at the wheel of his car, under the influence of a cocktail of drugs and anti-depressants one evening in May 2017 in Florida.
Woods eventually got up and won. But last January, he had his back operated again to remove a fragment of a disc that was pinching a nerve.
No date was set for his return to the greens. It was before his car accident on Tuesday.
© 2021 AFP
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