Boston-Homer

 Is Boredom Tiger's Biggest Downfall?

Have you ever been bored? I think we have all been bored at some point in our life. We can get bored with friends, our job, a TV show, a movie, a book, our family. When we get bored we usually do something about it. We change something that we are doing to kill our boredom. Some of these things may be more extreme than others. If I am sitting on my couch bored I can get up and go outside, I can change the channel, I can grab a magazine, I can go eat.

Bored effects us all. We all solve it differently.  I have thought more about Tiger Woods these past few weeks amidst his return to a regular golf schedule. I saw Sean Foley on The Golf Channel this winter and I had a spark of a thought. Does Tiger just simply get bored? With everything?


Tiger was fined for spitting in Dubai this past weekend...jokes anyone?


Look at his life and the trends we have seen. Tiger turns pro in 1996. He wins his first professional major, The Masters, by 12 shots. He is the "it" kid. Big smile, bigger talent, squeaky clean. He decided a hugely successful first season was not enough. He wanted to change his swing (something he would do twice more in the next decade). Tiger claims he changes his swing to get better. I think he gets bored and needs a new challenge.

After winning a handful of majors and tons of tournaments Tiger next decided to change his swing coach. Maybe he was sick of hearing Butch Harmon say the same thing over and over again (was that Elin's downfall?). He moved onto Hank Haney and won some more majors, dominating again after changing his swing. Now he is on his third coach and his fourth swing since he said, "hello world" 14 years ago.

Now lets look at Tiger's personal life. He was bored. Bored with married life. Bored with his gorgeous wife. He went out and found some women who could fix his boredom (isn't that what we do when we are bored? Fix it?). Tiger thought that this was an okay thing to do. I will believe nothing else, he thought it was okay because he was so cavalier about it.

Could Tiger have had the perfect life? Absolutely, he had the game, the money, the wife, the kids, the houses, the boats, and anything else he wanted. Which might have been the problem. He could get anything he wanted. And he did. He changed his swing, and he won. He changed his coach, and he won. He cheated on his wife, and he got away with it hundreds of times (hundreds!).

Boredom can be a dangerous thing. For Tiger it has set back his career 3 years, and judging by the way he is playing right now, he may have a longer way back than any of us really think. Time will tell I guess.