If you were of this earth back in December 1975 you most probably thought it was just another month when, in fact, it was momentous, giving birth, as it did, to Tiger Woods and Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Little did California and Chigwell know then that greatness had arrived in their midst, and that neither man would deliver a dull moment once they were big enough to hit little balls in to holes with sticks.
They’ve had their ups and downs, of course, but we got glimpses of the good ol’ days over the weekend when they were in action in the Bahamas and York, their respective venues nudging you towards concluding that Tiger had the better end of the deal.
He, as we know, had been side-lined for 466 days, golf’s telly people likely using Advent calendars to count down to his return, their coverage of the Hero World Challenge giving us a hint of just how much they missed him.
The Golf Channel, for example, showed us a list of his knee and back operations more often than they shared the leaderboard. So if you were, say, Hideki Matsuyama’s Ma tuning in, you’d have worried that your lad was struggling.
Robert Lee, our Sky host, was so excited about it all that when he asked us to vote for our Golfer of the Year you’d a notion Tiger would be added to the list of contenders – Henrik Stenson, Rory McIlroy, Alex Noren, Dustin Johnson – just for his shot at the fifth, when he whooshed the ball from the bunker and inserted it in the hole.
Pear-shaped
A very lovely sight it was too, even if it all went a little pear-shaped on the back nine. No matter, he’s back. Physically fragile, though? “I’m almost afraid to touch you in case I break something,” said David Feherty on NBC when Tiger dropped in for a chat with himself and Dan Hicks after his round. Tiger politely requested that Feherty desist from touching him, lest something fall off, but his mood was on the highly happy side, giving you the impression that this fella might actually be enjoying his golf.
But, wondered Dan, was it a little far-fetched to believe that a man born in the dim and distant past of December 1975 could ever win another Major. Tiger insisted he wouldn't have come back if he didn't think he could do just that, so Dan and David showed him a list of golfers aged 41 or over who won anything at all. It was very, very short. You feared the list would have the same impact on Tiger's mood as that Radiohead tune had on Tommy Tiernan on the bus in Father Ted – happiness deleted – but Tiger kept smiling. He has no plans for retirement just yet.
And neither does Ronnie.
But Steve Davis broached the subject and warned him, now that’s he old, that life after the game isn’t easy. “The problem long term for anyone in snooker is how do you replicate the excitement, it’s so much of a buzz,” he said.
Ronnie paused.
“Is it though, Steve?”
Problem
And that’s been the problem, really; Ronnie has never found snooker as interesting as Steve.
"Parachute jumping," Steve recommended for retirement, but Ronnie wasn't interested. I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here? Na. Instead Ronnie said he might move to Kenya for six months of the year and take up marathon running, telling Steve that every morning Olympic champions go jogging by, so if you chase them and eventually match their speed you'll end up running the 26-ish miles in two hours and a bit. "Hmm," said Steve. "Or I might try Big Brother," said Ronnie, his retirement plans a little like that pack of reds he expertly dealt with in the deciding frame of his semi-final against Marco Fu. All over the place.
But he proved to himself in that match that he still had it. He was doubtful before. “I was thinking of you and Hendry and your slow decline,” he told Steve, who smiled in a ‘thanks for that’ kind of way.
A birth date of December 1975 might make it more difficult to hit little balls in to holes with sticks, but it doesn’t mean you can’t keep on trying. Ronnie and Tiger, hanging in there.
