Second Golf Post of the Year!

So Tiger's cmoing back and every sports personality is predicting how he'll fare. Bill Simmons went as far as to say that no athlete ever had to deal with what Tiger's going through so there's no way to judge how he'll react.

I think he's wrong.

Simmons compared Tiger's situation to Muhammad Ali's return after being exiled from boxing. It's obvious, despite what the Sports Guy said, that Ali had a ton more to deal with. Still, the two situations are not comparable. They're not simillar in the least. There is, however, an athlete who went through a simillar situation recently, worse I'd argue, and gave us a gauge of how Tiger might perform upon his return.

I type, of course, about none other than Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

Like Tiger, Rodriguez had a marriage that fell apart due to infedeillity that was revealed and trumpeted by the tabloids. His divorce was extremely public and went on during the offseason. Tiger missed the beginning of his season, as did Rodriguez with his hip surgery.

The difference, though, is that Rodriguez had a few more issues. There was the Joe Torre book. There was the weird magazine pictorial where he kissed himself in the mirror. There were the questions about his clutchness. Oh, and he admitted his steroid use.

With Tiger's return, the questions circle solely around whether he can focus enough on golf to perform the way he used to. With A Rod, the questions were, not only about his focus, but also whether he'd even be physically capable to perform the way he used to post steroid bust and his surgery.

So when Rodrigues stepped into the batter's box on a Friday night in Baltimore, the sports world watched to see if he showed any indication of how the rest of his season would go.

He did.

He turned on the first 97 mph fastball and launched it into the left field seats. He never looked back. Rodriguez not only played the way he'd dine before, but also excercised his playoff demons. Never before had Rodriguez been so clutch. He did, I'd argue, get an unfair rap about his clutchness, but still had as good a playoff as you can expect any player to have.

I expect simillar results with Tiger. I see him birdie-ing his first hole and having at least a solid Masters, if not absolutely dominating. I guess we'll see this weekend.

Well you might see. I don't watch golf.

Peace