Tiger Woods can take a lesson or two from VVS Laxman on mental strength.
You wouldn’t say there is a great deal in common between India’s VVS Laxman and the world's number one golfer, Tiger Woods, but right now, one is “Very Very Special” and the other clearly is not, though he used to be. I doubt whether Woods even follows cricket, which in turn means that he has never heard of Vangipurappa Venkata Sai Laxman, but the troubled American golfer could do well to find out exactly what makes India’s sublimely-gifted batsman tick.
Just when you thought that Woods’ golfing career couldn’t plummet even further into depths he has never had to contend with, he shoots four of the worst rounds of golf around a golf course he has so clinically taken apart in his once illustrious past.
Everyone I know is finding it difficult to comment on the freefall that Woods has descended into but Brian Hewitt, editor of the American Global Golf Post, put it aptly “Watching Woods descend to new depths for four straight days is hard to describe. That, of course, won’t stop his army of critics from trying. After all, this was more than just Pavarotti missing the high ‘C’. It was Houdini locking himself out of his own house. It was Michelangelo falling off the scaffold. It was Shakespeare splitting all his infinitives.”
Woods maintains that he can “turn it around” for the rest of the season, but somehow I doubt it. His mind is not where it should be. He has a kaleidoscope of thoughts in his head and they are not emanating from the golfing lobe in his brain. Clearly, his mind is not on the job. Woods finished second to last in a field of 80 players and he was 30 shots worse than the winner of the Bridgestone Invitational, the 28-year-old American, Hunter Mahan.
So there was Woods hacking it around the pine forests of Firestone Golf Club in Ohio, and on the other side of the world in Colombo, out marched VVS Laxman with India struggling on 62/4 chasing 257 to beat Sri Lanka on the final day of the third Test to square the series.
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Laxman would be the first player on my teamsheet to go out and win the match for India. Second only to Sachin Tendulkar in making over 2000 runs against the Australians, Laxman possesses inner calmness and equanimity of mind, so much so that he hardly breaks into a sweat when he’s tormenting opposition attacks. VVS steered India home against Sri Lanka with an undefeated century, the 16th of his Test career, and as always, it was achieved with such grace and such poise from the one-time medical student, whose analytical mindset is an innate strength of his relaxed personality.
While Laxman recognises clarity, Woods can only perceive demons. His game is suffering a humiliating downturn because of it. Woods would do well to study the life of the great American golfer, Ben Hogan, whose career was interrupted in its prime by World War II and a near-fatal car accident in 1949 when he and his wife hit a Greyhound bus in a head-on collision.
The accident left Hogan, aged 36, with a double-fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collarbone, a left ankle fracture, a chipped rib and near-fatal blood clots. His doctors said he might never walk again, let alone play competitive golf , but he left hospital 59 days after the accident and was competing within 11 months. Hogan went on to win six more Majors — two Masters, three US Opens and the Open Championship at Carnoustie — in what remains one of the greatest sporting achievements of all time.
Strength of mind got him through unimaginable pain. Hogan is regarded as one of the greatest exponents of professional golf and with nine Majors, is only behind Jack Nicklaus (18), Tiger Woods (14), Walter Hagen (11) and equal with Gary Player.
Strength of mind is what Laxman has. Woods used to have it but right now he needs to declutter his mind and get back on to that road of single-mindedness that made him the best player on the planet. He knows only too well that he is a long way off that road and that the way back onto it is from within.
Alan Wilkins is a TV broadcaster for ESPN Star Sports. Inside Edge appears every alternate week