The Gift That Kept on Giving

Anybody else check in with Dad Sunday, and again Monday when Tiger Woods gave golf fans a Father's Day double treat at the U.S. Open?

"I'll tell you son. He's unbelievable," said the man my brothers and I have just recently started to call "Curly," as in the tough-as-nails Jack Palance character in the film "City Slickers."

Curly compares Tiger to Joe Louis and Jim Brown. Their excellence, unquestionable, their affect, transcendent.

And still there are those who'd rather see him fail. There was my brother-in-law on Father's Day evening, shouting Woods down like a gallery kibitzer; the kind that makes Woods step away from his shot a couple times a round. "He's ruining the game," he said, just before cheering a missed Woods putt.

But beyond the Godzilla drives and miraculous shots that come with a Woods championship, there is that mental toughness. It's the stuff Nike captured so powerfully in the voice of Woods' late-father in the ads NBC seemed to play every other break during the Open. Think Rocco Mediate was hearing the ghost of Earl Woods affirm: "Tiger, you'll never meet anyone as mentally tough as you. And he hasn't, and he never will."


I wasn't the only one to mist up a bit when Nike drove home its Father's Day message, just as tens of thousands of dads found themselves jumping out of their chairs when Woods performed deja' vu with breathtaking birdie putts to send the tournament to playoffs on both Sunday and Monday.

The sports moment that was Woods' 14th major title is for golf, the game, to celebrate. But what drove Woods this weekend, and in every other tournament he plays, is a gift between father and son.

It's what keeps fathers and sons watching.