Teed Off (05-09-2010)

with Robert Bicknell

If it's 31 August, I must be in an airport again. As usual, I am waiting for my flight to HCM City to participate in the Swing For Life Charity Golf Tournament. This is one of the big three events for me each year and something I truly look forward to.

Of course, I never win and for that matter I never win any of the other events either, but I'm of the age where I don't need excuses for not winning. I simply participate to support the event and to have a good time with a lot of friends I rarely get to see down south. It's like a family reunion, except nobody gets drunk and starts making inappropriate comments about someone's wife or kids.

Come to think of it, this would be my 18th or 19th National Day celebration in Viet Nam. Someday, I'm gonna have to sit down and write a book about all the changes I have seen during those years.

When I first got here, bicycles, xich-lo's, walking and buffalo cart were the main modes of transportation. Trust me when I say that you haven't truly lived until you've seen a bicycle traffic jam. The smarter guys just picked up the bicycle over their heads and walked through the jam. The best thing was, no horns to toot.

Later, motorbikes became overly popular, but without any traffic lights, lets just say that going through an intersection was sort of like being in a particle accelerator. Sooner or later…wham!

I think if Uncle Ho was around today, he'd be rather pleased with how far we've come over the last 20 years. It hasn't been easy, but it's always been exciting and fun to be a part of the growth and change.

I cannot help but wonder what the next 20 years will bring to us here in Viet Nam.

Happy National Day!

Now then, I often tell people that if your mind and heart is not in harmony, you simply cannot play good golf. The game is 80 per cent mental, so it's easy to lose focus if you have other matters on your mind.

A good example is Tiger Woods.

Tiger was on top of the game until his carefully constructed world came crashing down around his ears, or trousers, as the case may be. However, if you notice, the day after the divorce was finalised, Tiger ripped a 65 first round, sort of a "I'm freeeeeeeee!" exclamation.

Of course, reality set in immediately afterwards and he came crashing back down to earth, most likely after his agent called and asked "Now then, how do we regain all those lost sponsors?"

Either that, or he started noticing all the girls in the gallery who were shaking their yahoos at him, knowing he was a free agent again. It must be tough to be a single, billionaire…

The question is, now that Tiger has thrown off the shackles which preoccupied him over the last year, how fast will he come back or, more importantly, will he ever regain the pre-scandal level of play he had?

When all this happened, Tiger was pretty much in a class by himself, but since then, Rory McIlroy, Ryo Ishikawa, Bubba Watson, to name a few, have been playing some pretty good golf and the youngsters aren't afraid of Tiger. If anything, they seem to take relish in any possible head to head confrontation with him.

Rory McIlroy said what many wanted to regarding Tiger and the Ryder Cup. In a nutshell, he hoped that Tiger would make the team via a captain's pick just so he could go one-on-one with him and you know that's the match up both captains and the television audience would love to see.

Heck, they could make that one a pay-per-view and people would still send the ratings through the roof. — VNS