Mike Nadel: With power of positive thinking, this cat has another life
Tiger Woods could look at the U.S. budget deficit and say, "A little tightening here and there, and we'll have a surplus."
He could look at Joan Rivers' face and say, "She's one nose job away from being a supermodel." He could have looked at the Titanic and said, "At least we haven't run out of ice for cocktails."
We all could learn a few lessons from Tiger. And I'm not just talking about golf lessons (though those also would be welcome for all of us with hitches in our swings and yips in our chips).
While it's his unique set of skills that makes Woods what he is - his strength, imagination, shotmaking ability, mental toughness, work ethic and will to win are second to none - we shouldn't discount the role positive thinking has had in his unparalleled success.
He spent Friday's second round at the Masters locked in battle. He battled his own inconsistency. He battled Augusta National's wicked greens. He battled winds that howled for those with late tee times. He battled the slow pace that left him putting at dusk on No. 18.
Woods seemed to have lost the battle so many times that I prepared three different obituaries for his Grand Slam pursuit. And yet, when it was over, he sat at 1-under par going into the weekend, tied for 13th, one of 19 players in red numbers. Neither he nor his grand pursuit is dead yet.
He trailed leader Trevor Immelman by only seven strokes.
That's right: I said "only" seven strokes. I said it because Woods said it. And he said it because that's the way he thinks. Compared to Tiger, Cubs fans are pessimists.
"I'm in good shape," he said, not the least bit bothered that winning would require the second-best comeback in Masters history. "This golf course, you can make up shots here quickly. Just got to hang in there."
He hung in there a few weeks ago, winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational after trailing by seven strokes at the midway point. At the 2005 Masters, he entered the weekend trailing Chris DiMarco by six strokes and went on to win his fourth green jacket. In six of his 64 PGA Tour victories, Woods overcame deficits of seven strokes or more.
So we're supposed to think he's being overly optimistic when he says he can overcome Trevor Immelman and Brandt Snedeker (7-under)?
This is meant as no disrespect to Immelman. He is a great story. After last year's Masters, he lost 20 pounds due to a stomach virus. In December, he had surgery to remove a benign tumor from behind his ribcage. Born in South Africa, raised in England and now living in Florida, Immelman is just returning to the form that wins rave reviews from Gary Player.
Player, the best South African ever to don spikes, compares Immelman's swing to that of Ben Hogan.
High praise, indeed ... but could Hogan have held off a patented Tiger Woods charge?
Tiger has more lives than any cat anywhere. He used up his most recent life on his most recent hole: Friday's 18th.
After spraying his drive into the trees, he admonished himself: "Oh, Woodrow! (Bleep!)" Then he got to work. He smacked the ball off a bed of pine needles, through a small opening and onto the 10th fairway. He then lifted a perfect wedge onto the 18th green. How perfect? It might have gone in had it not nicked Stuart Appleby's golf ball on the green.
"Oh, well," Woods said. "I made four."
Phil Mickelson is one of three golfers at 5-under. If Lefty and Tiger have good rounds today and the leaders come back to the pack - as so often happens in majors (unless Tiger's the leader) - it could set up the too-good-to-be-true final pairing golf fans have longed for at a major tournament.
For all of Tiger's Masters mastery, it is Mickelson who has slipped on the green jacket twice in the last four years.
Neither time, however, did Phil have to stare down The Greatest Ever at the end.
After Woods made an 8-foot putt to save his incredible par on 18, we saw the classic Tiger Fist Pump.
Why do I get the feeling we'll be seeing a few more of those this weekend?
Mike Nadel (mikenadel@sbcglobal.net) is GateHouse News Service's sports columnist. Read his blog, The Baldest Truth, at www.thebaldesttruth.com.