Tiger

Although all four of the Heinisch children have played golf at one time or another, Cal and Cam have always been the most interested in the sport.  For Cameron, just playing it has been enough for him.  He does read about the ins and outs of the golf swing and practices even when he can't make it to the course, but religiously watching the sport on television has never been his focus.  He's enjoyed the majors and has always picked a favorite player in our family pool, but reading about the individuals on the PGA and closely following their careers has been only been a casual interest of his.

Cal, on the other hand, has not only loved playing golf over the years, but has also enjoyed watching it as well.  He knows all of the players, their back stories and does quite well in predicting the tournament winners.  It doesn't surprise me that he has always enjoyed following the PGA.  I can still remember the moments after the first tournament that Cal won at eight years old.  He was so excited that we had to tour the town showing off his trophy and relaying the highlights to his biggest fans - Grandma Jane, Grandpa Cutes, Bob Carlson and even Granny.  This first LYC golf tournament victory occurred during the height of Tiger Woods' career.  Thus, Cal not only was able to find success on the golf course, but he was also able to follow his favorite player's victories on television every week.  He could even pretend to be him on the PS2 with the Tiger Woods Pro Tour video games. Who could blame Cal for idolizing one of golfs best golfers?  The dedication, drive and commitment that Tiger put into the sport was impressive as was his athletic ability.  

Even after the repeated injuries and eventual moral downfall of his golfing hero, Cal remained a faithful member of Tiger's fan base.  He had told me that Tiger's win at the 2019 Masters was one of the best sports moments that he had ever witnessed.  Therefore, when Cal said that he was watching the "Tiger" documentary on HBO Max, I wasn't surprised.  Every night he would give me the highlights of the episodes and when he finished it he said that it was one of the saddest documentaries that he had ever watched.  I decided after our conversations that I would watch it as well and talked Doug into viewing it with me.

"Tiger" was really sad.  In it we learned that his parents controlled every aspect of his life growing up and relentlessly pushed him to become a golf superstar.  The scenes where his father would taunt him as he played so he got used to the crowds of the PGA were hard to watch.  Tiger's parents were the king and queen of what was wrong with youth sports.  Worst yet was his father's promotion of Tiger as the next Messiah.  It only made his fall from grace even harder when news of Tiger's extra marital affairs broke in 2009.  

I was really glad that Cal suggested watching the documentary.  Tiger Woods had been a big part of his life.  I had forgotten a lot about that period.  It was definitely sad to see how much a narcissistic parent could really damage a child's life, but Doug and I did get a laugh out of it in the end.  Watching the large galleries surrounding Tiger in the flashback scenes reminded us of the time we took Brett and Cal to the BMW classic in Chicago during the height of Tiger's fame.  It was hard to get close to the mega star and we found ourselves following other PGA players for most of the round.  Even when we weren't close by we could still hear the noise coming form Tiger's fans.  After one of these loud uproars, Brett turned to the three of us and said, "Wow, Tiger Woods must have just changed his socks."  We all laughed especially as we realized that Brett might have been right.