April 24, 2019 -- Editor's note: Tiger Woods' historic comeback to win the Masters Tournament earlier this month makes this column from last year even more relevant today.
About 15 years ago, I got a chance to hang out with Tiger Woods at the Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades, California. At 6:30 in the morning, he was putting balls into the cup from 15 feet, one after the other—boom, boom, boom. A thing of beauty!
Then he did something I had never seen before: He covered his left eye with his left hand and began rimming the hole. Ball after ball rimmed the hole. And I realized he was teaching himself what it felt like when he missed. It was like a basketball player shooting off the rim, a pitcher throwing just outside the strike zone, or a soccer player training himself to hit the post. By teaching himself the difference between the feeling of missing and the feeling of putting the ball in the hole, he knew which one to avoid. That kind of dedication set Woods apart then, and it is setting him apart once again.
Perhaps the most accomplished golfer in the history of the sport, Woods was stricken with an
