Unofficially, the Tiger Woods hysteria is now over, a relief no doubt to Woods himself and to the rest of us who no longer must consider Woods as anything more than what he is, a pleasant young man who plays the silliest of all games.
I say “unofficially over” because these passages are never clearly identified. There is no edict from, oh, I don’t know, the United Nations or the Vatican or from that greatest of all temples of jockocracy, Nike Town.
There is neither diploma nor parole from the place as The Next Great Thing to Just Another Dude.
Mortality happens.
For example, we do not know exactly when Frank Thomas ceased being the most formidable baseball player on Earth, but we know he no longer is.
Or, say, Kobe Bryant, the basketball prodigy. One month he is the Messiah of Future Hoops and the next he is just another bench refugee. These things can happen that fast.
It is too early to make the call on Tara Lipinski, the little ice urchin who may have fled irrational adoration just ahead of puberty. We shall have to wait and see which costume she is handed as a pro, Cinderella or Clarabell.
That is why I am making the call today on Woods, so we can all mark our calendars. When he wins his next golf tournament, it will be just a matter of simple addition and not historical and societal consequence.
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No, we can say, this is not a victory for a generation, or a gender, or a race, or a nationality, or a movement. Remember, that all ended at the Masters.
Woods went from metaphor to contender to guest to afterthought, all in four glorious spring days in Augusta.
When he wins again, and I assume he shall, Woods will be just another guy kissing another shiny trophy trying not to look goofy standing behind an oversized cardboard check.
When Woods defends his Western Open title, his last pending another victory, whether he wins or whether he loses will mean no more nor less than when Scott Verplank was up.
Failure is the most natural human common denominator, and it was very decent of Woods to share his with us, share it in a way with which we can all identify.
First of all, Woods gave golf back to its rightful proprietors, the middle-aged, the portly, the hair challenged. Losing to Mark O’Meara was just the right touch.
Had it been to Ernie Els or Justin Leonard or Phil Mickelson or one of Woods’ contemporaries, then we would have just swapped one fresh myth for another.
And it was very considerate of Woods to stay so far away from the final drama that Jack Nicklaus could have another moment. The old relic had already mortified himself by accepting a free ride into the U.S. Open. Now Nicklaus has justified his submission.
Dawn over, Woods enters the long day of his maturity, the place where O’Meara and Fred Couples and Ben Crenshaw and so many others have spent most of their time.
This is not necessarily an undangerous place, the peril being not the excessive and artificial worship as in the beginning, but the more delicate condition of routine expectation.
Woods’ career may not now be assumed the dozen green jackets and the certain Grand Slam (a year ago at this time, that was all the speculation) but some of each, an Open here and a PGA there and Ryder Cup domination somewhere, the world of Nicklaus and Tom Watson and Nick Faldo and the like.
And the longer between Woods’ authentications by these grand occasions, the more ordinary he becomes.
In other words, Woods now must go to work like the rest of us.
Well, not quite.