Last week's blog dealt with the television ratings increase that comes along with Tiger Woods contention for championships. Nationally, it appears Woods had another huge impact on ratings, with the Sunday ratings for the PGA Championship up 105% compared to the 2008 PGA that Tiger did not compete in due to a knee injury. This is the fifth tournament this year where ratings have been up over 100% for CBS -- call it the Tiger Effect.
So what happened on the course? I live in Minnesota, and so the PGA tournament was the focus of the print and television journalists for the past several days. This past week saw Woods take an early lead in the PGA Championship. After the 2nd round, Tiger had a four stroke lead on the field, and the headline of the sports page read simply, "A Gimme?". Other headlines that day included, "Chasing Tiger", "Follow the Leader", and "Tiger in Driver's Seat".
Other newspapers around the country echoed similar messages, and with good reason. When Woods had his lead trimmed to two strokes after the third round, pundits were no less confident he would win the tournament. After all, Woods had won an incredible 36 of 37 tournaments he led after three rounds, including all 14 major tournaments he had led entering the final round. The history of sport has rarely seen someone better at holding a lead. How then, did relative unknown Y.E. Yang upset Tiger on Sunday? It took a perfect storm of physical and mental factors.
Y.E. Yang as amateur psychologist
After the third round, Woods and Yang were paired as the final group on Sunday. Tiger is notorious for psyching his opponents out. It is incredible to hear the best golfers in the world acknowledge the heightened pressure they experience when standing toe to toe with Woods. Yang, who had one career victory before this week (compared to Tiger's 70 tournament championships) immediately took pressure off himself when he told the media about his only previous victory, "I didn't really have much confidence winning over those big names, so I just went for broke and somehow I won the tournament. With Woods, he's won 70 times now. I've only own once, so it's 70-1 odds. Might as well go for broke."
Playing to Win vs. Playing to Avoid Losing: Approach vs. Avoidance Motivation
A recent article by Malcolm Gladwell that was published in the New Yorker argued that taking risks is critical for underdogs to beat favorites. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell
What is interesting about the tournament's outcome is that at the end of the day, Yang had not taken an inordinate amount of chances. Rather, Tiger spent the last two rounds playing fairly conservatively, as if to hold onto his lead, allowing Yang to gradually creep back into a tie. After the third round, Woods commented on his conservative play: "I was pretty consistent all day. I was lag putting a lot. Given the conditions and my position in the tournament, I didn't mind it." In the final round, Woods continued to play cautiously, making par after par. Usually Tiger plays the role of the hunter; it appeared this weekend that he was playing the role of the hunted, with the philosophy that if he played well, others would have to play exceptionally to catch him.
Momentum
Woods and Yang were tied for much of the final round. This is where Woods tends to be at his best. His ability to focus and block out distractions is unparalleled. Woods is notorious for bringing the best players in the world to their knees. It resembles a war of attrition, where Woods exerts his will, plays excellent golf, and sooner or later the opponent cracks. Woods did it to Padraig Harrington the previous week in the Bridgestone Invitational, where Harrington led Woods until the 70th hole (of 72), when Woods birdied and Harrington posted a triple bogey. Sunday, Harrington was a group in front of Woods and Yang, and when he quintuple-bogied the 8th hole. Once again, it appeared Woods had squashed all but one challenger, with Yang to surely follow.
Woods and Yang began the 14th hole on Sunday still tied when Yang chipped in for an eagle. Tiger responded with a birdie, but never could catch back up to Yang. It appeared to this observer that Tiger was like a basketball team that had led by 10 points, held the ball, played conservatively, and then tried to play uptempo with two minutes left when the game was tied. Psychological momentum is hard to quantify, hard to predict, and really hard to manufacture. The conservative approach Tiger played with the last two rounds seemed to hamper Tiger's ability to turn things around once he had lost the lead to Yang.
Chance
If Tiger had made a couple of the several putts he narrowly missed on Sunday, he probably would have maintained a comfortable lead over Yang, who in turn may have been forced to make some very risky shots, which likely would have led to a decisive Woods victory. Then we would be singing Tiger's praises about how he has matured and how he knew exactly how to play the final two rounds. Instead, Yang played well, Tiger faltered and didn't hit many big putts, and we saw David take down Goliath in a classic showdown.
What to make of this upset?
Let's not forget that over the past three weeks, Tiger now has two first-place finishes and one second-place finish, a trifecta of results that any other golfer in the world would have trouble dreaming of, much less accomplishing. Yes, David beat Goliath for one weekend, and Goliath may look back and find that playing in the mindset of David (nothing to lose) is better than that of Goliath (everything to lose). That said, let's make no mistake that Goliath is still very much, Goliath, both on the golf course, and in the race for ratings.
