Mark WiedmerYou hear the words all the time: People don’t change. They age. They may outwardly mature. But they rarely change to any great degree. At least not at their core.
But to watch Tiger Woods win a golf tournament for the first time in 1,876 days on Sunday – and not just any tournament, either, but the Tour Championship at Atlanta’s venerable East Lake – was to witness a legendary 42-year-old athlete who seems to have changed at least a little bit. And much for the better.
No, he didn’t quite break down in full-blown tears after the 80th PGA Tour win of his career. He somewhat kept his emotions in check, though – thankfully – far less than in the old days, when he never seemed completely human but rather robotic, or bionic, or whatever was less than human emotionally but far greater than any real human being athletically.
“It’s been tough,” he told NBC afterward. “Not so easy the last couple of years.”
In truth, it’s been a tough nine years for Woods, though much of it was of his own making. It was Thanksgiving 2009 when his wife, the mother of their two children, found out Woods was anything but honorable as a husband and father.