Tiger Woods is the Zen Master of Golf

David Brooks captures the Zen of Tiger Woods in this NYTimes article.

"...Once Woods tried out four drivers that Nike was experimenting with and told the lab guys that he preferred the heavier one. The researchers thought the clubs were the same weight, but they measured and Woods was right. The club he’d selected was heavier by the equivalent of two cotton balls.

"But inevitably, it is his ability to enter the cocoon of concentration that is written about and admired most. Writers describe the way Earl Woods, his lieutenant colonel father, dropped his golf bag while Tiger was swinging to toughen his mind. They describe his mother’s iron discipline at home. “Old man is soft,” Kultida Woods once said of her husband. “He cry. He forgive people. Not me. I don’t forgive anybody.”

"Tiger was the one dragging them out on the course to practice. At age 6 months, he was put in a baby chair and had the ability, his father claimed, to watch golf for two hours without losing focus." [read more]

So now the question is: Is Tiger Woods the best athlete ever?

My answer: A great athlete is someone who could make people care about a sport which they don't even like. I don't like golf. But Tiger Woods makes me care about it.