Did Tiger Make a Mistake?

I’ve not been writing much over the past 2 years. Some of you who’ve been reading for a while may have noticed.

I lost my muse.

In March 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, my brother Josh died suddenly. We were close. Talked every week on Saturday morning. He didn’t like to talk on the phone much but somehow managed a 1.5 to 2 hour conversation each week.

Then in October, my mother died. Also suddenly. This was followed by my father-in-law in April 2021.

And we moved out of Austin in August 2020 having lived there since 1981.

I guess you could say I sort of pegged the “life stress index”. Any one of those events can create significant stress, emotional turmoil and, well, make life difficult.

The articles I write often just kind of show up in my head. It’s always been like this. I’ll be walking, for example, one of our dogs and an idea pops into my head. I get home and write. Always enjoyed it and, most of the time, my readers seem to as well.

But those ideas just stopped coming after March 2020.

I understand why. Grief takes different forms for everyone, lasts different lengths of time and I guess for me, it sucked all my creativity right out of me.

Until the end of the 2022 Masters golf tournament.

For those of you unfamiliar with the world of golf, Tiger Woods is one of the most successful golfers in history. Last February, he was in a car accident that landed him in the hospital with some serious leg injuries requiring multiple surgeries.

Well, Tiger made it back to competitive golf this April at Augusta National for the Masters tournament which is an amazing feat.

But was it the best choice?

At the end of the tournament, Tiger finished in 47th place. His worst score at the Masters in his professional career. In an interview after playing, he mentioned that walking 72 holes was very hard for him. ““Well, the swing part’s easy,” Woods said. “I can do that. It’s dealing with the pain each and every day. It’s just a lot of pain all day, every day.”

Hmm. Why?

Woods’ injuries included a compound fracture of his right leg. A compound fracture is a bone break that pierces the skin which is why he ended up in surgery. And fractures like this will take 18-24 months to fully “harden”. The bone knits itself together over a number of weeks but then you have to start applying some load to the injured leg gradually, progressively  to help the bone become more and more durable.

Woods returned to professional golf 14 months after his injuries.

If you load the healing bone too much, you can end up with a weak but healed bone or in some cases, something called a “non-union” which means the bone failed to heal.

Pain is not just a physical event. We tend to think of it that way though. You break your leg and, well, it’s going to hurt. Go through surgery, rehab, and yeah, all that can create pain.

But pain has three inputs only one of which is physical.

The other two are emotional and mental.

The emotional part is how you feel about the pain and the mental part is what you think about the pain.

These are the parts that you hear when people talk about their pain, symptoms. It’s what creates suffering. In fact, you can hurt long after the physical part has healed.

The emotional and mental stress of pain can actually increase the symptoms. Part of the reason is that those components ramp up your sympathetic nervous system – the part involved in “fight or flight”. This, in turn, increases muscle tension, reduces oxygen in your muscles and tissues. Both of these things then add to the pain experience.

Tiger also mentioned that he had played some golf with his son Charlie prior to the Maasters and it was nothing at all like the Masters.

Hmmm..wonder why?

Same clubs. Same physical loads. So what makes it different?

Yes, it’s more total golf but it’s also WAY more stress. Stress is exhausting. An energy vampire. So, your pain threshold will drop meaning what once didn’t hurt now does.

Recovering from an injury is more involved than just the physical strength. Most articles you read about things like joint pain suggest you strengthen the muscles. True. You need that (but muscle strengthening isn’t very successful by itself). You also have to manage the other two inputs – the mental and emotional parts of a pain experience.

And the first step is to recognize that what drives you, in Wood’s case for example, to go back to competitive golf after a serious injury in almost record time, is an emotional and mental factor.

In most situations, it’s identity. It’s who you are, how you define yourself so the loss of that part of you is very difficult to deal with. To quiet the clattering in your mind, you push yourself physically. Almost as if the harder you work, the quieter it will become.

But it rarely works.

Most of the time, ignoring the emotional/mental driver leaves you with more problems. Why? Well, your “load” is too much. By pushing yourself, you increase the physical load. This then winds you up emotionally which, in turn, increases the symptoms.

You end up hurting, frustrated and wonder why you’re not better.

Our culture celebrates the “tough” part of people. The comeback in record time all the while you’re limping. Announcers falling all over themselves saying things like “That’s amazing! What a tough competitor!”

Or maybe not.

Maybe the tougher thing to do is to recognize that you’re not ready just yet.

I hope Tiger figures that out. He has a lot of years of golf in him still and he’s a joy to watch.

You might be wondering what was it about the interview that inspired me again? Good question. Short answer is I’m not sure. But my educated guess is that the cloak of grief lifted just enough for me to see something, find something in me that I recognized. That part of myself that likes to find connections between things and share it. Maybe that’s the teacher in me.

Thanks for reading.

If you like this article, why not share it with a friend? If you’re interested in coaching services, please contact my colleague Laurie Kertz Kelly for a free, 20-minute Strategy Session by, clicking here. To get my Secret Weapon to fight knee, hip & back pain and stiffness, subscribe for free today.

Doug Kelsey has been a physical therapist and human movement expert since 1981. He is formerly Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Clinical Affairs at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the author of several books. He has conducted over 250 educational seminars for therapists, trainers, physicians, and the public and has presented lectures at national and international scientific and professional conferences. His professional CV is here.