And not by accident. "If you listen to his words, Tiger makes his methods accessible," says Dr. Gio Valiante, who has been Villegas' mental coach for several years. "It happened with Hogan and Nicklaus: The dominant golfer of the generation revealing how he plays the game, the subsequent generation able to study that and then saying, 'It's possible. If he can do it, I can do it.'
"The first 20-somethings who followed Tiger probably were too close in time to fully absorb his lessons," Valiante says. "But now players like Camilo and Kim have. They know intuitively, for example, that Tiger made it OK to be selfish. Nicklaus wrote 'golf's gentlemanly code requires that you hide your confidence.' Tiger changed that when he came out fist-pumping. At the time, guys were complaining, 'Don't bring that to golf; it's disrespectful and arrogant.' But Tiger proved the fist pump was about something bigger, about accomplishing the most difficult thing in this game, which is to be free. To be fully engaged, without inhibition, without indecision, without fear. To release.
"The blueprint is out there," Valiante says. "The question I've put before Camilo is, 'Why not you?' "
Woods surely plans to provide an answer, but he avoids tipping off any counter moves.
"It's fun to see the next generation of players, but I haven't been out there or watching," he says. "I haven't seen how they've been acting or talking. I don't know how they're acting coming down the stretch of a tournament, because I haven't seen their eyes. I don't know any of this stuff." But then he adds a very knowing getaway line: "Most of their success has come when I wasn't there."
In 2009, he'll be back.
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