Quicksand: Shane Falco and Tiger Woods

By Joe Schackman

Tiger Woods' play on the golf course this year has been largely forgettable. So why is he still the top story of every tournament?

Keanu Reeves may not be the voice of our generation but oh man, do I love The Replacements.

Reeves’ character, Shane Falco, is a washed up, grizzly quarterback who lost a heartbreaking Rose Bowl game in college and has never escaped the shadow of that failure. It seems to be a theme with Falco; escaping, that is. Later in the movie he has one of the deep and revealing Keanu moments that we know and love, where he tells his teammates about being in “quicksand.” Not physical quicksand, but rather that feeling in a game where failure and doubt creep into your mind and you can’t escape. You fight harder and harder, trying to pull yourself out, but you can’t escape. Eventually it swallows you whole, and you realize you knew from the start that you had no chance. Tiger Woods, believe it or not, is that quicksand.

A few short years ago, we would have been talking about the quality of his golf game and his domination of the sport. How Tiger’s ability to go screaming up a leaderboard put fear into his opponents. His name alone could rattle veterans and force them into untimely mistakes. Eventually, people would just beat themselves. It seemed the more people pushed back against Tiger, the faster he swallowed them whole.

But this is not 2006, and Tiger Woods has not won a golf tournament in quite some time. He has squeezed out a few top 10s and made his share of cuts, but outside of 30 minutes at the Masters this year, Tiger has been far from an influential player on the PGA Tour. Yet here we are, still talking about him, still discussing his game. Fighting harder to get away but realizing he’s just swallowing us back up.

Tiger has been the story of the year, despite the fact that his game has produced meaningless golf. In a season where we had three good young players establish themselves as top competitors, we have instead been fixated on Woods. Charl Schwartzel wins the Masters and we talk about how Tiger missed putts down the stretch. Rory McIlroy puts on a dominating performance at the U.S. Open and we wonder if he is the next Tiger (by the way, that is a big no). Keegan Bradley wins twice as a PGA tour rookie, including the PGA Championship in a playoff, and we discuss how Tiger did not even make the cut. He is still the story and golf’s biggest star, despite his lack of recent success. The fans, media and players cannot escape from his pull.

So it should come as no surprise that Freddie Couples, this year’s Presidents Cup Captain, is Tiger’s most recent victim. He has already told Woods that he will be one of his captain’s picks for the team this year when it heads to Australia in November. Based purely on numbers, it is a peculiar decision, seeing as how Woods has struggled with his game and his health all year. He is just barely on the top-30 list for qualifying for the team and he didn’t even make into this year’s FedEx Cup. You scratch your head for a moment, trying to get your mind wrapped around it. That is, until you remember this is Tiger Woods we are talking about.

It really was inevitable. The United States team doesn’t have much firepower, that is, unless you dream about the Bill Haas-David Toms pairing. U.S. captains have lost their share of Cups in recent years but no one has been the guy to lose while leaving Tiger Woods at home. We may scoff now at Couples’ decision, but if the U.S. team were to go down to Australia and lose in the singles match, everyone would be telling Freddie he should have had Woods on the team.

Couples defended his decision by calling Tiger the “best player in the world forever.” It is a simple explanation because there isn’t much more to say. Tiger Woods at his peak is the most talented golfer to ever touch a club. It may no longer be a certainty that he will pass Jack Nicklaus’ record, and with that goes the title of “greatest ever.” But Tiger at the top of his game is unstoppable, and every captain is searching for unstoppable.

You may, as a golf fan, be tired of hearing about Tiger. You may be looking for any story other than Woods. But it is inevitable really. The harder you look, the quicker Tiger swallows you back up.