Tee Time with Tiger

When I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on Tiger Woods even though I was completely clueless about golf back then. I had a couple of clear folders filled with newspaper and magazine cuttings of his pictures. Sometimes some of my friends would give me a heads up, "Rina, ada gambar Tiger Woods kat paper today" or some would simply leave newspaper clippings about him on my desk when I wasn't around - how thoughtful!

Then in late 2009, news on Tiger Woods' sex scandal exploded in the media and like the rest of the world, I was shocked, angry and disappointed with him. When sponsors started to drop him off, I thought, humphhh serves him right! When he started to play horrendous kind of golf (for his standard), I thought, well too bad, you've got bad karma now dude!

However, when dear SRB bought tickets to see him play at Dubai Desert Classic recently, I couldn't help but feel excited! I mean, I still think he deserved all the bad consequences after cheating on his wife big time, but it's sort of a dream come true to finally be able to meet my teenage crush, to watch the 'fallen king of swing' in action chewaahhh!

To be honest, in all those years that I was konon2 crushing on him, I had no idea how golf is played. I never understood the rules, how points are counted, that whole eagle, birdie and par business until about 30 minutes before I met Tiger Woods - thanks to Phil, SRB's colleague who patiently explained to us how it all works and who also helped us get 50% discount on the tickets since he's a member of the golf club hosting the tournament. He will be forever carved in my memory as the one who made me finally understand the game of golf.

Then, it's time to join the crowd trailing Tiger Woods and I gotta say, it was totally surreal to see him in real life! I have to stop myself from poking him or something every time he walked right past me. It was so hard to get a good picture of him even though I was just a couple feet away coz photography was actually strictly prohibited, so kena curik2 amek gambar. He looked darker in real life, but everything else, the macho-ness and all, was just exactly like in those Nike & Tag Heuer posters yo!

We were lucky coz we got to see the world's current top 3 golfers played that day since they were grouped together, although honestly, I never knew who the no.1 and no.2 players are until that very day hehe. Tiger Woods is now world's no.3, kasihaannn.

Even though Tiger has been receiving bad publicity for the past 1 year, there's still a huge group of people rooting for him. There were a lot of "Go Tiger!", "You can do it, Tiger!" and not so much cheering going on for the other 2 players. Dear SRB even managed to get a personal thank you from Tiger for his in-your-face "Come on, Tiger!" cheer. I gotta say, I was proud of dear husband's stalker-ish behavior that day hahah!!!

Unfortunately, the support and encouragement from Tiger's fans still couldn't stop the bad karma from biting his ass. He was not even in the top 10, he finished in the 20th place instead adoiiii! I guess he still have a LOT of work to do in order to climb his way back to the top.

Chasing Tiger at every hole di tengah hari yg panas was quite tiring (I think golf is the only sport that makes the audience move and sweat as much as the players), but I felt like it's worth every drop of sweat and sunburn endured. It was totally awesome to finally get a chance to meet him and see him play, however good or bad it was.

And I'd like to say a big fat THANK YOU to dear SRB for making it possible. This might sound so cliche and corny but you certainly made my dreams come true, babe! *Cue Hall and Oates' You Make My Dreams Come True song now, just like in 500 Days of Summer hehe*

P/S: There's no other reason behind this blog's silence in the past month other than I was just not in the mood and the right state of mind to share/write.