Wall of fame

Greatness comes at a price. not everyone can afford it

When I look back on this incredible past decade of sport, I feel I have been as privileged as anyone in the business of broadcasting in that I have seen close-up the three greatest players in their respective sports at their very best: Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Sachin Tendulkar.

I have met all three. I have interviewed all three, Woods at Augusta, Federer at Wimbledon and Tendulkar on virtually every Indian cricket tour for the last ten years. And all three are different. I am not going to calibrate their greatness, if indeed this can ever be done; once the level of greatness is achieved, it is then a platform for debate as to who meets personal criteria for favourites’ choices.

Tendulkar is the oldest of the three at 36. Woods is 34. Federer is 28. We all know that the career of the great American golfer is on hold. His personal drive to be the greatest of all time has hit a red light stop sign. He crashed his family car at his Florida home on November 27 last year and since then, Tiger Woods Inc has closed down. Then he was seen and heard on February 19 at a golf club in Florida, which also happened to be the headquarters of the PGA Tour in the US.

Woods’ telecast even affected the XXI Winter Olympics in Vancouver when suddenly any shift in the medal table seemed rather less momentous than the baring of the soul of arguably still the world’s most compelling sportsman.

I was uncomfortable watching Tiger render his soul in what was some performance in front of the cameras, and his mother, but not his wife. But was it necessary? Did Woods have to take 14 minutes to deliver a speech that should have been delivered in private? Surely, he had no reason to say sorry to his wife and children so publicly. That’s what gated mansions are for.

Haven’t we all had enough of the salaciousness of the entire story? No, unfortunately, in our modern voyeuristic world, where we can all drop into the world of celebrities and virtually spy on them with the click of a computer mouse, such lurid stories sell papers, magazines and internet space.

It is time to move on. We all want to know when Tiger Woods will play golf again. It’s a question he probably cannot answer himself. He has won 71 PGA Tour titles, with only Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus ahead of him. In Majors, Tiger’s 14 put him four behind Nicklaus’ all-time record of 18, but he is ahead of Nicklaus at this stage in his career.

Tiger’s last Major came at the 2008 US Open when he was 32. Nicklaus had won eleven Majors at the same age, but he went on to win another seven, the last of them — the 1986 Masters — at the remarkable age of 46. Statistically, at least, Woods has years on his side. Psychologically, we just don’t know where he will be at the end of this very public and humiliating ordeal.

Federer is a close friend of Woods and this week he had words of comfort for the American. How their lives have become so different. Federer, with 16 tennis Grand Slam titles, is the all-time leader, and arguably the greatest player of all time. He was way ahead of the great Pete Sampras in terms of years, when he went past the American in the Majors count. But Federer has also found a home-life with a wife, who basically manages his tennis affairs, and their new family of twin daughters. He is only 28, but clearly the father-figure on the ATP Tour. He has never looked more relaxed and there is no reason that he shouldn’t add to his Majors.

India’s Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest statesman of them all. At 36, he has been playing Test Cricket for 20 years for a country that continues to elevate this most modest man with God-given talents to a level of immortality.

Tendulkar’s longevity in cricket is startling. He still scores centuries. He still revels in every aspect of the game. He has played an amazing 166 Test matches with 47 centuries, and there are also 442 One-Day Internationals with 46 centuries. Add to that another 221 centuries made in first-class cricket and List-A matches. To say nothing of the latest achievement of scoring a double hundred in ODIs.

Tendulkar has managed to maintain a private life with his family in a city that does not lend itself to such a lifestyle. But more than just a healthy bedrock at home, he has adhered to strict principles of fitness and has consequently reaped rewards for years of regimen and abstinence. I have never met a more modest or self-effacing man in my life — certainly not in sport. Few would disagree that next to Sir Don Bradman, Tendulkar is the greatest batsman of all time.

Woods, Federer and Tendulkar: all three have mastered their own sport. All three have achieved greatness. All three have years left in them to break even more records. Up until that car crash in Florida, we all believed that all three had also managed to master their own lives at home. We now know differently.

The world wants Tiger Woods back on the golf course. We wait. And what will he bring? Some of his old, sublime game, no doubt, but also a sense of a man who has looked at himself in a way he has never done before. Short of blood, it is hard to know what more he could put into his golf bag.

ALAN WILKINS is a TV broadcaster for ESPN Star Sports. Inside Edge appears every alternate week