I had a chance to listen to the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN radio this afternoon. Dan and Michael Irving were debating on whether or not Tiger Woods could actually be the greatest athlete alive. Both seemed to be in agreement that:
- Golfers are not athletes
- Tiger wouldn’t be able to compete if he were involved in any other sport
For the sake of argument, Tiger plays in a non-team sport, so if he had concentrated on - let’s say - tennis when he was 3 years old, and was instilled with the same mental toughness that his parents did with golf, wouldn’t he be a most formidible opponent?
Let’s move this same theory to a team sport such as football. Let’s say Earl and Tida Woods decide that when their son, Tiger turns 3 years old, they will train him to be a football player instead of a golfer. What kind of quarterback do you think young Tiger would grow up to be? If the three of them dedicated his life to football the way they did golf, wouldn’t he have the mental focus, and toughness to read defenses quickly? Wouldn’t he still have the ability to be creative and make plays? And if he trained for football all those years the way he did golf, wouldn’t he have the physical body geared more toward that sport?
Now you know as well as I, that we will never really know what would/could have happened, But if I were to speculate, I think Tiger would have more than held his own in whatever position in whichever sport he(his parents) chose.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:31 am
Your statement golfers are not athlete, reminded me of Babe Zaharias who was regarded as greatest golfer and athlete during her time. Also a lot of athletes took up golfing during the latter part of their athletic career of course some didn’t so well. Kinda reminds that if fishing is a sport then I am such a damn good athlete, catch my drift?