Five Thoughts as Tiger Woods Turns 50

Tiger Woods turns 50 years old on Tuesday. In anticipation of that milestone, we asked our resident old man, 48-year-old Kevin Van Valkenburg, to share five thoughts on what it all means. 

1. Norm Macdonald — the late, great comedian who spent five years as a cast member on Saturday Night Live — wrote a line in his memoir that I think about weekly as I stare down the inevitability of turning 50.

The wisdom also applies to how I feel about Tiger, one of the first great athletes to be roughly my age. I can say that I’ve been there for his entire career arc — the highs, the lows, the disappointment, the resurrection, and the coda. It’s still a bit of a blur.

“The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you’re not careful, it’s too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.”

2. Did it go by fast for Tiger? Obviously, I can’t speak for him. I know it went by too fast for me. I was 19 in 1997, the year he won his first Masters. It did not feel, back then, like we were particularly close in age. He was a luminary. Everyone was pulled into his orbit. In college, my friends and I used to crowd around the tiny television in my dorm, eager to see him do extraordinary things. We were just kids, trying to figure out who we were supposed to be.

It’s easier to grasp, looking back, that he was, too.

I feel much closer to Tiger these days. Our hairlines are retreating faster than we’d like. Various body parts need repair or replacement. Our best golf is regrettably behind us. It was impossible to imagine him ever turning 50 back when he burst onto the scene and hit a pitching wedge into every par 5 at the Masters. It was also impossible to imagine myself at 50, because 50 seemed old, and the journey to get there was difficult to visualize.

Now when he limps around the course or winces in pain but soldiers on, stubborn-as-ever, I think: Yeah, I know that guy.

It’s probably one of the reasons I like Tiger more now than I did when I was young. I like myself more, too, at least most days. Looking back, I realize that mistakes and wrong turns are an inevitable part of your 20s, 30s, and 40s. It’s another thing a young man will never understand.

3. It can be easy, as you get older, to dive deep into the waters of nostalgia. Every couple months, my high school and college friends will spend an evening in our group chat reminiscing about football games we played 30 years ago, or about the ones who got away. It’s a soothing exercise, at least to a point. The past can’t be too far gone if you can still remember the details. But there are diminishing returns. Every time you relive a memory, it conjures up some of the same emotions, but you also dull a bit of its original magic.

The media is doing something similar with Tiger this week. Look around and you’ll find plenty of digital ink devoted to his past glories. When a great athlete reaches an age milestone like 50, it’s only human to reminisce, to make a list of their greatest moments and rank them. I even thought I might engage in that exercise when I sat down to write this piece about him.

What’s your favorite Tiger victory? Your favorite Tiger shot? How funny and weird was it when he introduced us to Mack Daddy Santa? What about that time he tweeted that he appreciated going No. 1 in the Chapelle Show racial draft? Or when he popped a bone back into place and healed his own wrist? BTW, here are the rest of his 50 most memorable moments in honor of his 50th birthday!

As fun as those lists might be, they’re also kind of hollow. I once asked Tiger if he’d ever tried to recreate his chip-in from the collar on the 16th hole during the final round of the 2005 Masters. He demurred, insisting it wasn’t really possible, so why bother? The green had changed, he said. It wouldn’t be the same. But of course he wasn't just talking about architecture.

He’d rather keep the original fresh in his mind.

4. One of my college friends scolded me recently for playing “remember when?” a bit too often in our group chat.

We’ve known each other for 30 years and have been through some crises, big and small, so I didn’t mind the frankness.

Instead of yapping about the good old days, he said, why don’t we make some new memories? Yeah, maybe they wouldn’t be as interesting or as cool as what we lived through, but they didn’t need to be. They could be funny or memorable in fresh ways. Don’t we owe each other that?

His words made me think differently about Tiger turning 50. Perhaps we should save all that reminiscing for an obit, hopefully another half century from now. He is 50, and in a few years, I will be, too. We are both very much alive.

What an interesting exercise it would be to look forward instead of back. It does not matter if he plays golf at the highest level again. He’ll never be who he was in his 20s, so all we’re chasing is a memory that can't be relived.

How much more fun would it be to watch him and Ernie Els trading blows on the Champions Tour, even if a cart has to ferry Tiger between holes? Instead of holding on to what was, there is something freeing about letting go of dreams of miracle comebacks or Cinderella stories, and embracing Tiger the Elder, the golf dad, the grandfather, the ambassador.

Someday, Augusta National will want him to hit the first ceremonial tee shot, wave to the crowd, then hold court with the media. It doesn't seem like such a bad fate when you think about it. I hope I'm there to write about it.

5. Fifty seems old if you’re 25, but to Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player, it must feel like some of Tiger’s best years are just beginning. You get a chance to watch your own kids write their own stories. You get to build golf courses, not just play them, and take what you love about the game and carve it into a piece of earth that will likely outlive you.

Norm Macdonald was right, of course. It goes by too fast, and a young man can never understand just how fast when he's living through it. But an old man has something a young man never will: The wisdom to savor all the good that is still to come.