Getting Back to the Top

I'm not a golf fan.  I've never claimed to be.  But I will admit that Tiger Woods winning the Masters again after 12 years is truly a remarkable feat.  Evidently he wasn't done after all.  And his victory is a testament to how truly spectacular he is as both a competitor and a champion.

Love him or hate him, Tiger Woods is the best thing ever to happen to golf.  I mean, look at this, he's got me writing a blog post about it.  He's the most important player in the game, and it isn't even really that close.  Tiger Woods being in contention at a Major makes people care.  Whether you're a hard-core golf fan or a casual follower or you're completely indifferent, you knew Tiger was in contention on Sunday and you wanted to know what happened.  That's the power he has.

A lot of people had counted Tiger out.  It had been 11 years since his last Major title...that brilliant performance at the 2008 U.S. Open.  He's 43.  He's had too many surgeries to count.  Yet, through it all, he persevered and came all the way back to win a fifth green jacket and show that Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 Major wins may not be so out of reach after all.

Some have called it the "greatest comeback in sports history."  Performances like this lend themselves to that type of hyperbole.  The truth is all subjective, though.  So while that claim isn't necessarily "wrong," it isn't "right" either.

Nevertheless, it does rank up there among the greatest comeback stories in sports history.  There are, of course, the memorable comebacks by teams in games (the Patriots in Patriot Game LI, the Bills-Oilers Wild Card Game, BYU-Iona in the First Four) or series (the 2004 Red Sox).  And those by individuals in team sports (Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan).

What Tiger did, though, is a different thing entirely.  Getting back to the top of an individual sport from the absolute bottom to the brilliance of these athletes.  Tiger is just one of many who've achieved an incredible comeback to become a champion again.  All of which are remarkable stories in their own right.

Lindsey Vonn: Let's start with Tiger's ex.  She's torn up her knee time and time again, and her injuries are almost too numerous to count.  After missing the Sochi Olympics, she won her second race back the next season.  Then in PyeongChang, Vonn ended her Olympic career with a bronze in the downhill.  She then won a bronze in the downhill at the 2019 World Championships in the final race of her career.

Kim Clijsters: Clijsters won the US Open in 2005 and made the semifinals of the first three Grand Slams in 2006 before a myriad of injuries caused her to retire from the tour.  She got married.  She had a baby.  Then in 2009 she decided to begin playing tennis again.  She was unranked and needed wild cards to get into tournaments.  They gave her one at the 2009 US Open, and she went on to win the whole thing!  Then she did it again in 2010.

Dan Jansen: Until 1994, Dan Jansen's career was remembered mainly for Olympic disappointment.  He fell in the 500 meters (hours after finding out about his sister's death) at the Calgary Games, then had a fourth-place and a 26th-place finish in 1992.  Two years later in Lillehammer, Jansen finished eighth in the 500 before setting a world record in the 1000 to finally become an Olympic gold medalist, at the age of 29.

Justin Gatlin: He won gold in the 100 and bronze in the 200 at the 2004 Olympics, then took gold in both at the 2005 World Championships.  Then in 2006, Gatlin received an eight-year doping ban that was later reduced to four years.  He came back in 2011, took bronze in the 100 in London, then started winning silver behind Usain Bolt.  Until 2017 that is.  In the final race of Bolt's career, Gatlin finally beat him, becoming World Champion again 12 years after his first World title and spoiling the GOAT's farewell.

Roger Federer: Yes, it's weird to see Roger Federer's name on a list of athletes with great comeback stories.  But he has one.  After playing in every Grand Slam tournament for 16 years, Roger missed significant time for the first time in his career in 2016, missing the French and US Opens after knee and back injuries.  Roger was back to full health by the 2017 Australian Open, which he won for his first Grand Slam title in five years.

Monica Seles: There's perhaps no greater individual comeback story than Monica Seles.  We all know the story.  She was No. 1 in the world when a deranged Steffi Graf fan stabbed her in the middle of a match.  Seles missed almost two full years, then made the final of the 1995 US Open in just her second tournament back.  She followed that up by winning the 1996 Australian Open for her ninth career Grand Slam title, and, while not the same player, she was consistently ranked in the top 20 for the better part of the next decade.

George Foreman: If there's a more beloved personality from the sport of boxing than George Foreman, I don't know who that is.  Before he began selling grills, he won an Olympic gold medal in 1968 and became world heavyweight champion in 1973, losing the belt to Muhammad Ali at the "Rumble in the Jungle" a year later.  Incredibly, after retiring and unretiring, he beat Michael Moorer in 1994 to regain the heavyweight title 20 years after losing it.

Muhammad Ali: Speaking of Ali and the "Rumble In the Jungle," that marked the culmination of a pretty remarkable comeback by The Greatest.  Ali's career is well-documented.  He beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title in 1964 and retained it until 1967, when he was banned from the sport because he refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War.  Ali returned in 1970, lost a title fight to Joe Frazier in 1971, then became the undisputed heavyweight champion again in 1974 when he knocked out the undefeated Foreman in what remains one of the greatest and most significant matches in boxing history (that also made for a great finale of an exceptional movie).

Lance Armstrong: Forget about the drug thing for a second and just consider the significance of the accomplishment.  He beat cancer then won the Tour de France seven consecutive times.  Armstrong was given only a 20-50 percent chance to live when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, was declared cancer-free in 1997, returned to cycling in 1998 and began the Tour de France streak in 1999.  Then he retired, came back, and finished third in the 2009 Tour (which is really what got him in trouble with anti-doping agents).  Sure, it was all a lie.  But the beating cancer wasn't.

Bethany Hamilton: In 2003, a shark bit her arm off.  Most people would stop surfing after that.  Not Bethany Hamilton, who, it should be noted, was 13 at the time.  She was back on her board a month later (after teaching herself how to surf with one arm), resumed competing in 2004 and won the ESPY for "Best Comeback Athlete."  Then in 2005, she won a national title.