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Tiger Woods made a quadruple-bogey 8 and four-putted on the way to losing the 1996 Quad City Classic (now the John Deere Classic) to rumpled journeyman Ed “The Gripâ€� Fiori. This, after Woods had held the solo 54-hole lead. Three weeks later, Woods got his first PGA TOUR win. “It should have come at Quad City,â€� he said after winning the Las Vegas Invitational, where in his fifth pro start he dispatched Davis Love III in a playoff. “I learned a lot from that.â€� Well, yeah. You could say he’s had an OK career. Woods, of course, reeled off his 81st win and 15th major championship at the Masters three weeks ago. And holding leads? Not until 13 years after Quad City, at the 2009 PGA Championship (Y.E. Yang), would Woods give up another solo 54-hole lead. Like Albert Einstein said, “Failure is success in progress.â€� Most every TOUR pro can tell you about the proverbial one that got away, a tournament they had in their grasp only to fumble it away at the end, oftentimes in gruesome and agonizingly public fashion. What’s apparent in hindsight, though, is that such days are not just a rite of passage but also building blocks, foundational necessities even. Those hard losses? They often lead to spectacular victories. Examples abound: Rickie Fowler was just 65 starts into his PGA TOUR career but already beginning to hear some chirping about his inability to close, having lost 54-hole leads at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide in 2010 and the AT&T National in 2011. But at the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship, he rallied on Sunday to make the playoff, then outdueled Rory McIlroy and D.A. Points for his breakthrough victory. “Obviously there’s a lot of people that have doubted or said you’ll never win,â€� Fowler said afterwards. “So it’s nice to kind of shut them up a little bit.â€� Bubba Watson rolled Kevin Kisner 7 and 6 in the championship match of the 2018 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, but a year later a smarter, stronger Kisner powered through his bracket and won it all, beating Matt Kuchar 3 and 2 in the final a month ago. Anirban Lahiri lipped out from five feet in his 2015 Presidents Cup match against Chris Kirk, one of a handful of missed opportunities, any one of which would have won it for the International Team in Seoul, South Korea. But at the 2017 Presidents Cup at Liberty National, with the Americans poised to celebrate a day early, a tougher Lahiri came through in the clutch. Kyle Stanley went from the lowest low to the highest high in a span of seven days in 2012. Then there’s two-time Wells Fargo champion McIlroy (2010, 2015), whose entire career has followed this bust-boom cycle. In fact, he said at the Masters, he’d even been reading books on the subject, including “The Obstacle is the Way,â€� by Ryan Holiday. What is going on here? And what’s so great about losing that it leads to so much winning? What doesn’t kill you … You could be excused if you watched the 2012 Farmers Insurance Open through your fingers as Kyle Stanley, an epic talent from Gig Harbor, Washington, suffered an epic meltdown. “God, how did I feel?â€� he says. “Pretty embarrassed.â€� With one hand on the trophy as he played the par-5 18th hole at Torrey Pines South, Stanley spun a wedge back into Devlin’s Billabong, took a drop, pitched on with his fifth shot, and three-putted for an 8. He lost to Brandt Snedeker in a playoff, making bogey on the second extra hole. “It’s no fun to blow a lead like that, especially with a par 5,â€� Stanley says now. “I think I said after that that I could probably play that hole 1,000 times and always make less than 8.â€� Although they’d never met, Mark Few, head coach of Gonzaga, Stanley’s favorite basketball team, texted and told him to keep his head high. “It just kind of brightened my spirits,â€� Stanley says. Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker checked in, too. “So many people reached out; I felt a lot of support,â€� Stanley adds. “A number of players. I wasn’t in as bad a shape as one would think.â€� Once the shock wore off, he told himself he was going to have some bad holes, and he’d just had one at a really bad time. He had to forget it; he was still playing some of the best golf of his life. Seven days later, checking fewer leaderboards, he shot 65 to overtake a faltering Spencer Levin to win the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Fans called him “The Comeback Kid,â€� and Stanley teared up as he thanked his parents. His roughly 6,000 new Facebook friends reached out, and one of the first congratulatory texts he received was from Few. “I think winning was maybe the only way I would have put it behind me that quickly,â€� he says. “I was just playing so well. After something like that it turns into more of a mental thing.â€� Experience is the best teacher Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.â€� Before beating Stanley at Torrey, Snedeker was leading the 2010 Waste Management Phoenix Open but, with his mind a whir of activity, shot 78 in the last group and finished T43. “I hadn’t had the lead on Sunday and been successful,â€� Snedeker says. “That stuck with me on the West Coast. I said, Listen, I’m not going to play that way again, scared and afraid.â€� Something obviously clicked; he now has nine TOUR wins, and won the 2012 FedExCup. One of the game’s elite players, Snedeker looks back to that abysmal final-round 78 in Phoenix. “That was the one where I realized, you’re not doing this right,â€� he says. “I said, Next time I’m in that position I’m going to focus on the small things, stop looking at leaderboards, and stop focusing on things I can’t control. And it really made a difference.â€� Keegan Bradley, who cites the 2012 Northern Trust Open (now Genesis Open) as the one that got away, says such losses can still provide a helpful shot of confidence. To be fighting it out with Phil Mickelson and Bill Haas, who ultimately won, told Bradley he was on the right track. “I still think about it,â€� he says. “I had 10 feet that I thought was going to be to win the tournament. And (Haas) makes this 60-footer and I miss.â€� Did the loss fuel an ensuing win? “Well, it did help,â€� Bradley says, sounding surprised by his answer. “I won Akron the following year. It just helps you realize you’re supposed to be there, that you can be there, going up against Phil, you know. That was one of my favorite memories, actually.â€� Every week is a clean slate Before he won THE PLAYERS Championship in March, McIlroy had strung together five top-six finishes in a row without a victory. He patiently answered questions about his ability to close after each one—the golfing equivalent of being nibbled to death by ducks. Then he notched his electrifying and historic win at TPC Sawgrass. “Maybe if I hadn’t have had those experiences,â€� McIlroy said afterward, “I wouldn’t be sitting up here with this trophy, so I’m thankful and grateful for those experiences I’ve had this year.â€� One such experience came at the 2011 Masters, when he took a four-shot lead into the final round but triple-bogeyed the 10th hole on the way to an 80. McIlroy is normally an easy-going and even chatty competitor, but upon reflection he realized he’d been trying to be someone he wasn’t: a ruthless, tunnel-vision type. Part golfer, part cyborg. That was one of the lessons he took to heart as he crushed the field at the U.S. Open at Congressional two months later, winning by a gaudy eight shots over Jason Day. “I was very honest with myself and I knew what I needed to do differently,â€� McIlroy said. Kisner, too, spoke of lessons learned after winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in March. Namely, getting waxed in the 2018 championship match had taught him what not to do. “Last year I felt like I rushed around to get ready to play in the second match,â€� Kisner said. “I ran around and ate really fast, ran back out. Tried to go through my whole normal routine in an hour to get ready, and that’s just not feasible (considering) how much golf you played.â€� And this time? “I hung out,â€� said the low-key South Carolinian, “took a shower, chilled out, got some treatment on my body and really went to the range at 2:05, and teed off at 2:25. I just went and hit 20 balls and went to the tee. I think that greatly helped my mental side of the game as much as anything. “I wasn’t overhyped for it and just tried to go play a casual round of golf.â€� Lahiri: A changed man two years later Lahiri’s 2015 miss in his match against Kirk was more than just a cruel lip-out; it swung the entire Presidents Cup. Unbowed, Lahiri would play a prominent role for the International Team at Liberty National in 2017, with the outcome all but decided. On Saturday, he and partner Si Woo Kim took on Americans Kevin Chappell and Charley Hoffman in a Four-Ball match. No team had ever clinched on a Saturday; a Chappell/Hoffman win would make history. “We obviously wanted to end it,â€� Hoffman said. “We knew what was on our shoulders.â€� Hoffman pitched in for birdie at the 17th hole, prompting a delirious American celebration, but Lahiri had spied champagne on ice in the U.S. Team’s carts and vowed that the corks wouldn’t pop early. He converted from 20 feet, his final birdie of the back nine — he also had birdied 12, 15 and 16 — to halve the hole and thwart the Americans as the Internationals won, 1 up. The champagne went back on ice. “Got to give it up to Lahiri,â€� Hoffman said. Did he work harder on his putting after the 2015 Presidents Cup? “Much harder,â€� Lahiri says. “It’s hard; you’ve got to learn from it. You can’t persecute yourself. There wasn’t anything I could’ve done differently (in 2015) except maybe hit the putt a fraction softer. I was just waiting to get that opportunity again where I needed to make a clutch putt, and I made a few. That’s the one area of my game that has improved in the last few years.â€� Would he have come through in Jersey without his agonizing finish in Seoul? “Hard to say,â€� Lahiri says. “I don’t think anyone can look back at their life and say, ‘I would be exactly where I am had that not happened to me.’ Life doesn’t work that way.” “You just accept what comes, you learn from it and you evolve,â€� he adds. “I’m grateful for whatever I’ve experienced – the good and the bad.â€�
THE OVERVIEW By Cameron Morfit, PGATOUR.COM Four back surgeries since March 2014 and one PGA TOUR start over the last two seasons. The line on Tiger Woods has been less than promising of late, but he can’t be done at age 41, can he? (He’ll turn 42 on Dec. 30.) Pat Perez is his age and seems to be just hitting his prime, with victories at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba and CIMB Classic in a span of less than 12 months. Ryan Armour, who lost to Woods in extra holes at the 1993 U.S. Junior Amateur, is Woods’ age and won for the first time on TOUR at the recent Sanderson Farms Championship. Now here comes Woods, again, making a comeback, again, at the Hero World Challenge. “I hope he can come out and give us his best,â€� Armour said recently, speaking for many. “His best may not be his 2002 best, but I hope he comes out and competes. I hope he wins again.â€� TOP 30 PLAYERS TO WATCH IN 2018 We’ll countdown our list with one new player each day in December. Click here for the published players. When Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines at 32, there was no indication that it would be the last of his 14 major championship victories. When he won the 2013 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, his fifth win that season, there was no indication that it would be his last of 79 TOUR wins. There’s a gnawing sense of incompletion to his career. At the Presidents Cup at Liberty National, where he was an assistant to U.S. Captain Steve Stricker, Woods said he wants to play again. The Hero will begin to reveal whether that’s possible. Past comebacks have fizzled. Returning at last year’s Hero, Woods led the field in birdies, finishing 15th of 17 players who finished all four rounds. He seemed to have gotten his speed back. He looked good. Alas, he missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open the next month, withdrew from the Dubai Desert Classic a week later, pulled out of his next two scheduled starts, and had fusion surgery in April. Not so good. So here we are again. Will this comeback last? Will it even be a comeback? The prospect of Woods returning to some recognizable version of his old self is too tantalizing to dismiss out of hand. What would happen if a reinvigorated Woods ran into Jordan Spieth or Justin Thomas? Worlds would collide. “I want to see him stare down a few of these young guys so they can experience what it’s like when the hairs stand up on the back of your neck or when he’s the guy you have to chase,â€� Rod Pampling said from the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas. “They’ve seen his dominance as kids, but they’ve never felt it.â€� We’ve seen it. We’ve felt it. We’ll keep watching for an indication of whether we might again. BY THE NUMBERS How Tiger Woods ranked in Strokes Gained statistics during his last full season on the PGA TOUR. FEDEXCUP Current 2017-18 position: N/A Playoff appearances: 5 (also qualified but did not play in 2008) Best result: Won twice (2007, 2009). Woods is the only two-time winner of the FedExCup. INSIGHTS FROM OUR INSIDERS TOUR INSIDER by Ben Everill You can’t help but want to watch this man. Deep down we know his best days are past him but here’s the thing — he doesn’t need to be near his best to be better than a lot of other players. Tiger Woods at 75percent his best is still good enough to win on TOUR multiple times. At 50 percent, he could contend and even win somewhere. But the big question mark is will he remain healthy enough to even get half as good as he used to be? The 79-time PGA TOUR winner says he has the desire to play regularly again. Whatever form that takes, I for one am looking forward to it. Call it hope, call it nostalgia, call it what you like — Woods is always worth watching. EQUIPMENT INSIDER by Jonathan Wall Making his long-awaited return at the Hero World Challenge, Woods is without question the biggest equipment storyline. He’s also the biggest question mark. Woods signed with TaylorMade at the beginning of 2017, but his bag setup is still unclear. He was spotted at a charity event with a set of Nike VR Pro Blade blanks that featured his “TGR” logo stamped on each head, along with a mixture TaylorMade clubs, but that likely won’t be his setup for competition. FANTASY INSIDER by ROB BOLTON If you were curious how much action he’s attracting, consider that I haven’t written or tweeted how to act on his imminent return to competition, and I’ve received zero inquiries. He also remains a free agent in my season-long private league in which we go 160 deep. There’s simply no interest until he hangs up a result. Even if he generates a whiff of hope, contending teams won’t need to reach. STYLE INSIDER by Greg Monteforte Tiger has always blended classic styles with the latest high tech fabrics. Expect more of the same in 2018 with some jacquard striped polos in conservative whites, blacks, blues, and reds. There is no word from Nike on a 2018 shoe for Tiger, so expect him to roll into the New Year with the TW’17, a shoe with a dual strap system designed to keep his feet more secure and locked down.
And when he launched a staggering 395-yard fairway into the centre of the fairway on the par-five 16th and Woods then hit his tee-shot under the lip of a fairway bunker, it seemed inevitable that the match would soon be level. The gusts were rising and Woods was on the slide. Yet after Woods played out sideways and knocked his third from 205 yards to 25 feet, McIlroy hit an awful second shot.
