Posted June 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm in Golf News

Playing with pain

What great athlete has never played through pain in the quest for victory? This is not your ordinary kind of pain, a headache, a toothache, a muscle ache, no, this is the dibillitating kind of pain as a result of a sports injury. Where most of us would just collapse on the nearest sideline (couch), screaming for the next available appointment with Jack Kavorkian, professional athletes not only have to overcome this agony while performing at their peak but are expected to - all the while risking permanent damage and increasing the pain tenfold by pushing the envelope!

In sports this is referred to as, "playing through pain", and it's something that all pro athletes are expected to do, especially in team sports. Shake it off, walk it off man, BE the pain, suck it up pardner, eat the pain, thank you sir, may I have another! It's an athlete thing folks. Ask any pro athlete if victory is any sweeter than when acheived through pain and you may be surprised at the answer. It certainly doesn't do their legend any harm and their peers respect them for it.

Playing through the pain

The dead givaways that there is major suffering going on while playing in pain are not so much dictated by the actual location of the injury such as in Tiger Woods case, the knee, but are seen more through facial distortions like, winces, grimaces or hissing of air through gritted teeth brought about by nerve grinding pain as a result of an injury (old or new). Most times these reactions are hidden behind football helmets and hockey masks (where serious pain lives). But a guy like Tiger Woods who has the TV cameras focused on him so acutely that you can see the imprint from his wife's last kiss, just can't hide his pain. Believe me, he wants to hide it because he does not want the world to see he is human NOR does he want his fellow competitors to think he would use the pain as an excuse should he (gasp!) actually not win. I have a theory about guys like Tiger that I would like to share with you later in this post.

Say it ain't so Goosie

But first let's talk a bit about what Retief Goosen supposedly said about Tiger at the US Open, as reported by the good folks at Fox Sports - anything for that juicy story, huh guys? First, I find it hard to believe that anyone could get that many words out of Retief Goosen. Second, if I am not mistaken, "Goosie" as he is referred to by his friends on Tour, including Tiger Woods, would ever say anything like that about a fellow competitor. I think Fox Sports is either misquoting him or taking his words out of context. I can just hear Tiger after some well-intended person points out this article saying, "oh, that Goosie, such a kidder!"

Fox Sports, in the article, says that Goosen, a two-time U.S. Open champion himself, "seemed" to accuse Woods of faking the extent of the injury when he winced in pain and limped around Torrey Pines on his way to a third U.S. Open title and 14th major championship. Hey! Fox guys, would you like to explain to me and the rest of the sports world just what "seemed to accuse" is supposed to mean? Let's break this down point by point shall we.

Point # 1 - Tiger won the US Open with a double stress fracture in his tibia and a knee that will require reconstructive ACL surgery. I think it's safe to assume that there was some pain associated with this, don't you? A lesser man would have been doubled over, puking his guts out.

Point # 2 "Nobody really knows if he was just showing off or if he was really injured. I believe if he was really injured, he would not have played." Now anyone that knows Tiger Woods at all would laugh at this statement, (again, I would be very skeptical Goosen said this) because unless a doctor had come out on the course and told Tiger that there was no question he would die if he kept playing would he actually withdraw. Cmon guys, this is Tiger Woods and the US Open we are talking about here, besides would a dying Babe Ruth stop trying to hit home runs in the World Series? Ask Ken Venturi if he ever thought of withdrawing from the 64 Open. How about Larry Smith of the football Cardinals playing with two broken arms in the playoffs? Or Ben Hogan in the 1950 US Open barely able to walk. I could go on and on.

Point # 3 "I think so," Goosen said Tuesday when asked if Woods was exaggerating the severity of the injury, according to a report on the Web site of The London Times. "It just seemed that when he hit a bad shot his knee was in pain and on his good shots he wasn't in pain. You see when he made the putts and he went down on his knees and was shouting, 'Yeah,' his knee wasn't sore. Again, I think this is laughable, I might believe a Phil Mickleson or Vijay Singh would say this but not Goosen.

And this is where I feel it appropriate to inject my own theory about athletes like Tiger Woods playing with pain. As a former athlete (runner, baseball player, golfer) I can tell you that knee pain is a bitch. I gnaws at you day and night and God help you if you put any weight on it. Pain causes a rush of adreniline, which is squirted into the brain in order for the athlete to carry on. When you try to ignore pain or the anticipation of pain to perform an athletic move like a golf swing, you count on adreniline to help you through it. It doesn't always help. My theory contends that Tiger knew how far he could push himself on any particular shot. He set up to hit the shots he needed to with a minimum of effort so that he would not further inflame the injury. Had his leg buckled I think a crawling Tiger could still have won. That is how tough the guy is.

However, when a guy like Tiger sets himself up for a shot, girds his loins for the following jolt of pain and then makes a bad swing, that is where the grimacing comes from. For just one brief moment he has let down, the dissappointment of a missed shot combined with the pain it took to make the swing is now written all over his face for all the world to see. Now he realizes that he has to go deeper, ie, more pain. The effort that allowed lesser pain but that resulted in a bad swing won't win him the US Open and he knows it. Part of that grimace is the thought that he must inflict more pain upon himself to get the job done. And when he does make the crucial shot or putt the happiness at overcoming adversity and getting the job done overrides the pain it took to pull it off. I admire the guy, he has a lot of guts.

In a smarmy statement directed to Retief Goosen Fox turns the tables and asks if the news that Tiger Woods will miss the rest of the 2008 season will finally convince Retief Goosen that his knee injury is genuine. A chastised Goosie lowers his head but stands by his statement. I gotta call Bull****! on that.

I for one am dissappointed to lose Tiger for the rest of the season. It is yet to be determined how this will affect professional golf with two majors left in the season. Personally I think Tiger Woods could take a couple of years off and still break Nicklaus's record in the majors with time to spare. I just want to see him stay healthy and I hope that this time he allows himself enough time to fully recover.

Photos courtesy of SI.com