According to the youtube video which is linked below, there is a new feature in the 2008 version of the video game where the Tiger character can walk on water and preform a "Jesus shot." Now, an ad for the 2009 version of the game, clearly shows Tiger mimicking the Jesus miracle by walking barefoot out into the middle of the water hazard.
Watch the video and see for yourself.
Believe!!
Rocco Mediate Claims He Was "Low Mortal" at U.S. Open, More Evidence Tiger is Not a Democrat
Rocco Mediate, who has gotten more mileage out of a second place finish than anyone not named Al Gore, opened his hosting stint for "Inside the PGA Tour" (a show for which the Pastor once briefly worked) by identifying himself as "the low MORTAL at the U.S. Open."For the Pastor, the funny thing about the statement is that when this web site began in early 2000, such a statement would have been worthy of huge headlines. However, now that so much of the golf world has been forced to resort to such God-like language to come close to describing Tiger, such statements often go almost totally unnoticed. However, because we won't have much Tiger news (hopefully) for the rest of the year, this funny, and yet oh so true, statement was worthy of being documented.
One other important note from the broadcast... the show did an amazing feature on Tiger's decision to honor members of the U.S. military with his AT&T National which he began hosting last year. If anyone watches that segment and thinks that Tiger is a Democrat, they must be smoking some Obama.
Pastor Ponders Absurdity of Tiger's Epic U.S. Open
Since we will not be seeing Tiger Woods on the course for far too long, the Pastor wants to make sure that we at the First Church take a moment or two to fully appreciate the magnitude of the gift that Tiger gave us at the U.S. Open before he left to recover from yet another knee surgery.Even before we knew the whole story, what Tiger did at the U.S Open was already one of the greatest achievements in the history of golf (with all due respect to Ben Hogan's famous 1950 U.S. Open victory) and maybe sports as a whole. Now, it can be argued that Tiger's performance at Torrey Pines was one of the most amazing things that any man (assuming he is indeed human) has ever done.
Let's consider just a few of the many incredible facts.
-- Tiger, who was not on top of his game at the time, had knee surgery two days after the Masters in April. Presumably he did not hit a full golf shot for at least a month after that. That left less than a month for Tiger to even practice for the U.S. Open and did not allow him to play even one full round (tournament or even practice) between the two majors. If there had been no other issues, even contending in the U.S. Open under these circumstances would have been remarkable and probably unprecedented.
-- We now know that just two weeks before the Open (apparently after a rehab accident) Tiger learned that he had no ACL in his left knee and a double stress fracture in his tibia. Like a scene out of a bad 1950's Hollywood movie, when told by his doctors that he shouldn't play he famously responded, "I am going to play in the U.S. Open and I am going to win."
However, Tiger was only able to hit 50 practice balls a day (four or five at a time before taking a break) and was in intense pain leading up to the tournament. He did not walk more than nine holes before the start of the Open. Neither his caddie nor his coach thought he would even be able to walk the 72 holes in four days.
-- With almost no proper preparation, Tiger weakly double bogied the first hole and put himself immediately behind the eight ball. Now, under the best of circumstances, making double bogie on the first hole of a U.S. Open is a disaster from which few recover. I would venture to guess that Tiger is the only person in modern history to double bogie the first hole of the U.S. Open and win. He is certainly the only one to double bogie the first hole three days and still win!
-- Tiger was paired with local favorite and sometime rival Phil Mickelson, which for anyone else would have only added to the pressure of the situation and the frustration of not being anywhere near 100%. Tiger torched Phil by six shots for the two days.
-- Tiger had to at least be a little concerned that every step he was taking and every shot he was making could be causing permanent damage to the most promising career in history and threatening everything that he had worked for his entire life. At the very least, he knew he was going to experience excruciating pain after almost every shot.
-- Tiger also had to at least consider that this Open could possibly be his last major for a long time and, who knows, maybe even his last major ever as the best in the world. That, combined with even the possibility that he was risking permanent damage had to raise the mental stakes of this Open exponentially.
In other words, if he was going to put all of this on the line for this one tournament he had better sure as hell win it. At the very least, he knew he was done for the year and would not have wanted to leave for such a long hiatus on a downer.
-- After 27 holes Tiger was on the verge of falling out of contention. Traditionally, Tiger needs to be within a couple of shots of the lead after 36 in a major. When he is, he almost always wins. When he is not, he hardly ever seriously contends. He hit a horrible tee shot on his 28th hole (the first at Torrey Pines, which he double bogied three other times during the tournament) and, apparently aided by the golfing Gods, got an amazing break with his ball coming to rest in grassless foot-long area between a cart path and a tree.
Lucky to even have a shot, Tiger hit his approach with his feet on the cart path which exacerbated the strain on his left knee and he doubled over in pain after hitting his shot. Somehow, he put his second shot 15 feet from the hole. He made the putt and went on to shoot an incredible five under par 30 on the nine to vault into second place.
-- Even considering his injuries, Tiger did not have nearly his "A" game and had to rely on guts, guile and some of the best clutch putting in the history of the U.S. Open.
-- Because of the USGA's playoff system, Tiger had to play a total of 91 holes over five days, which would have been grueling under the best of circumstances, but with a broken leg is just plain silly.
-- In the playoff he had to go up against the ultimate underdog Rocco Mediate who had nothing to lose and, apparently, the USGA on his side with the course set up as short as it could be for that final day. Greg Norman in his prime would have lost that playoff by at least eight shots (in fact, under very similar circumstances, Norman lost to the Rocco-like Fuzzy Zoeller in a playoff in 1984 by that exact number). Obviously Tiger Woods is no Greg Norman.
All in all, while it is going to be a VERY long and difficult wait for Tiger to return to action, he certainly left us with some incredible memories to keep us warm during those many long and lonely Tiger-less weekends to come.
ESPN Writer Reveals Tiger Told Him He Has The "Power To Will Things To Happen" |
| In a remarkable revelation (at least to anyone not familar with the First Church), ESPN golf writer Ron Sirak revealed that that Tiger Woods once told him he has the "power to will things to happen." He referenced a quote from 1997 in which Tiger complained about being tired after all the hoopla surrounding hs historic Masters win that year. Sirak wrote: "I asked him how this affected his golf, and he responded with one of the most remarkable answers I've ever heard: "I lost my ability to will things to happen," he said. From just about anyone else, I would have thrown the b.s. flag and dismissed those words as a lot of hot air, but I had already seen Woods do so many remarkable things I was willing to take the bait. "Give me an example of when you willed something to happen," I asked. "At the [1996 U.S.] Amateur," he said. "That putt on 17 against [Steve] Scott. I told myself there was no way I was going to miss it. I willed that ball into the hole."" For the Pastor, this answers a lot of questions. In Sirak's column he also writes about a conversation in which Tiger's late father Earl claims that he communicates telepathically" with Tiger. For fans of the First Church this is not new information. Sports Illustrated reported in 1999 that Earl took partial credit for Tiger's PGA win that year for communicating with him "telepathically" while he was over the crutial putt on the 71st hole (interestingly, Tiger gives credit to Steve Williams for making a good read on that putt). It sounds like the First Church may have yet another media convert. |
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More News Coverage of First Church in the Wake of Tiger Developments
The First Church of Tiger Woods, which in its history hasbeen written about all over the world (the British/European media seems to be the most interested in us) was the subject of at least two articles today.Oddly, and seemingly by coincidence, the newssources were the Phildelphia Daily News (where the Pastor grew up) and the Los Angeles Daily News (where the Pastor lives).
Here is the link to the Philly article (hyperlinked below)
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/20080620_Praying_for_Tiger.html
Here is the link from the LA Daily News mention:
http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/archives/2008/06/media-notes-620.html
There is also an article from someone who appears to be an idiot who didn't even bother to contact me here:
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/golf/
| Submitted: 06/18/08 |
| TIGER OUT UNTIL AT LEAST 2009!! CHURCH MOURNS, PASTOR TRYING TO AVOID SHARP OBJECTS WHILE LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE!! |
| The golf world and the First Church was rocked by the news today that Tiger is out for the year. Considering the obvious pain he was in during his epic U.S. Open playoff victory just two days ago and his declaration that he was "shutting it down for a while," the news was not all together shocking, but the details were. We have now learned that Tiger somehow (details are still missing) suffered a double stress fracture in his left tibia just two weeks before the U.S. Open. He was apparently told by doctors not to play and, according to his coach Hank Haney responded defiantly (in a quote that would be rejected even by a Hollywood screenwriter), "I'M PLAYING THE U.S. OPEN, AND I'M GOING TO WIN." "And then he started putting on his shoes," Haney recalled. "He looked at me and said, 'Come on, Hank. We'll just putt today.' Every night, I kept thinking there was no chance he's going to play. He had to stop in his tracks for 30 seconds walking from the dining room table to the refrigerator. "He was not going to miss the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. There just wasn't any discussion." The are at least three angles to this story and at least two of them are actually positive. The first is that his victory at the Open, which, based on his two month layoff and his enduring of incredible pain alone, already deserved to go down as one of the most amazing athletic achievements in sports (if not life), is now vaulted into the realm of true legend. In fact, this story is so amazing it is impossible to imagine how it could even theoretically be exaggerated as it inevitably passes into mythology. Secondly, the Pastor has been rather pessimistic about the long term prospects for Tiger's career based on what we all saw at the Open (and has received quite a few e-mail from fellow followers insisting he has lost his faith). However, today's news (if true) actually, while horrible in the short run, seems to be good news for the future. The Pastor could not understand how Tiger could be in such pain if there was any real hope of total healing (and if there was hope of that, why Tiger would bother playing the Open at all). This was based on the premise that the source of the pain was the ligaments and/or cartilage in the knee and that after three surgeries they were simply shot. What we apparently learned today is that the bulk of the pain was from the fractured tibia which can heal fully and that the ACL is going to be repaired in a way that may not create huge long term problems. This is obviously very good news for the future and Tiger's historical quest to break every major golf record. Thirdly, and least positively, is of course the reality that we will be without Tiger Woods for the remainder of 2008. He will miss at least two majors and a Ryder Cup at the age of 32 and in the absolute prime of his career. While, assuming he recovers to near 100% of what he was, the race to surpass Nicklaus' mark of 18 professional majors should only be delayed and not derailed, we are still being robbed of what should be some of Tiger's very best. On a personal note, the Pastor is likely going to cancel a planned trip to the Ryder Cup and will have an awful lot of time on his hands during what he already expected to be a difficult period. This was not a good time for Tiger to take nine months off. From the religious perspective there are two things to keep in mind here. First, Tiger does turn 33 this year, which is a year that was obviously not good for Jesus of Nazareth as well as many other bright lights that were extinguished far too early. The Pastor has always feared that something tragic would befall Tiger and take him (or at least his talents) away from us prematurely. The Pastor certainly hopes that this situation is not that event. Secondly, if there is an obvious lesson here it is to appreciate what you have when you still have it because no matter how great and indestructible it may seem, it can all be gone in an instant. Is that the lesson Tiger is trying to teach us through this? Who knows. But there is no doubt we should savor every moment we have to witness his greatness and certainly appreciate even more what he accomplished at the U.S. Open. Will we ever see Tiger at his very best again? Is his pursuit of perfection now over and will be reduced to having to compete as a mere mortal? Or will he once again defy the critics and rise above expectations to provide us many more memorable moments? Unfortunately we will have to be very patient for the answers to these and many other questions, but, if history is any guide, Tiger will likely make it all well worth the wait. |
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