John Abel talks about his experience with Tiger Woods as his caddie Tags: Golf, Tiger Woods
PALOS VERDES, Calif. -- It's a feeling we all know and hate. The clammy hands, trembling fingers, buckled knees. A stomach resembling John Daly's after a weeklong buffalo wing binge.
This type of anxiety knows no equal. Wedding day? Ha, that's nothing. Anyone can say, "I do," then dance a celebratory waltz while still suffering from a case of the nerves.
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ESPN.com's Jason Sobel sat down with Tiger Woods to discuss what the world's No. 1 player has been up to since his ACL surgery, plus when he expects to return.
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No, this particular affliction requires hitting a golf ball under pressure while standing in your own private spotlight. Whether the entire membership is bearing witness from the clubhouse veranda or the other guys in your foursome are barely taking notice, the point is, there's always somebody watching. All of which leads to the ailment known as -- cue the horror movie trailer voice and the opening four notes to Beethoven's Fifth -- "first-tee jitters."
And if taking a hack with a 460cc driver in front of friends, relatives and total strangers isn't already nerve-racking enough, then doing so in front of the guy who does it better than anyone else is truly a festival of fluster, a saturnalia of sensitivity, a ... well, it ain't easy.
Just ask the eight winners of the recent Gillette Fusion "Play a Champion With Dad" contest. Originally, the rules called for each to play a single hole with Tiger Woods, but with the No. 1-ranked player currently sidelined due to knee and leg injuries, the prize morphed into a showcase of skills in front of a guy who has plenty of 'em.
Watching Tiger tee off? Priceless. Having Tiger watch you tee off? Frightful.
"It's like a teenager taking a driving test with Michael Schumacher, the world champion grand prix racer, as the evaluator. It's intimidating," said Doug Foulkes, 63, of Fairborn, Ohio, who lists his official handicap as "I just go out and hack."
Playing the 280-yard white tees on the 10th hole at Trump National on Tuesday, Foulkes was the first player in the two foursomes to hack in front of Tiger, and he yanked a low draw that never climbed above the hazard preceding the fairway.
He would have company soon enough. Next on the tee was Edward Long, 30, from Hill End, Australia, who stepped up, took a mighty cut ... and topped the ball about 12 yards. It prompted Woods to respond with something that rhymes conveniently enough with "it happens."
Then came Stuart Duncan, 39, from Mackay, Australia, a once-a-year player who, uh, looked the part. Hands shaking and nerves obviously rattled, Duncan needed three attempts just to place his ball on the tee before making like his fellow countryman and hitting a worm-burner that never left the ground.
Trust me: These weren't first-tee jitters. They were first-tee nervous breakdowns.
"It was a bit nerve-racking to have a professional standing right in front of you like that. I was shaking a bit," Duncan said in extreme understatement. "The thoughts that just kept going through your mind are, 'Is everyone going to laugh at me?' 'What's he going to think?' All those sort of things. So there was a lot of pressure."
Perhaps the wannabes would have been soothed by the knowledge that they're not the only ones who get a case of shakes on the first tee at times.
"Do I? Oh yeah, definitely," Woods said of his own first-tee jitters. "If you don't get nervous, that means you don't care."
He lists two specific drives as being the most fitful of his career.
"My first shot in the L.A. Open when I was 16 years old. I was fine until I took my first practice swing and went, 'Oh God, that club is heavy.' And then I got over the ball and had all these random thoughts: 'Don't hit the ball out of bounds.' 'Don't hit the ball right in the trees.' And somehow, I shook it down the fairway," Woods recalled. "And the other one was my first tee shot as a pro in Milwaukee."
Rest assured, there were a few usable drives from contest winners in front of Tiger during the scramble format, though admittedly none that will keep the 14-time major champion awake at nights, wondering if he can ever reach that level once again.
Of course, this day was less about the spirit of the competition and more about a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hang with a legend -- sort of a golfer's mini-fantasy camp.
Said Paul Saward, 39, from London, who knocked a 3-wood into the fairway, "It was everything I thought it would be. [Woods] just seems like an ordinary guy ... but he isn't, of course."
Maybe not, but the next time you stand over that opening tee shot with your tummy tumbling, take heart in knowing that, hey, it happens to the best of 'em.
Nathan Easler is a Statistics Associate at ESPN. He has a mathematics degree from the University of Minnesota and has also worked in the golf industry as an assistant professional, instructor and coach. Easler is able to uniquely combine his mathematics and golf background to compile and analyze golf statistics, focusing on those numbers that help tell the stories of the game.
ESPN.com's Jason Sobel sat down with Tiger Woods to discuss what the world's No. 1 player has been up to since his ACL surgery, plus when he expects to return.
