This is a nice piece of sports writing from the desk of Joe Posnanski and (delightfully) the POV of the 12th hole at the Augusta National golf course. I’m linking to it here because it’s a good read now and it will be a good read five years from now and five years after that. Evergreen is what that’s called in the business.

I also love this particular passage for what it says about the way the ego that drives us in your younger days may not be the ego that we need to keep going into our middle and later days. When you get to the sentence about young golfers feeling too proud and too strong, roll it around in your mind.

I looked at him closely. Was this really Tiger Woods, the bold and impertinent kid who believed that nothing was beyond his powers? I could not tell. I began to say my silent prayer for him … but then I stopped because I noticed something. He was not that Tiger Woods. He moved more gingerly. His face was wider. His weather-worn face suggested that he had seen things.

And as he began his swing, I caught something in Woods’ glance, something unusual, something I had not seen in, well, in a long time.

Deference.

He aimed his shot away from the flag. 

He hit it to that space between my front and back bunker. The ball landed and settled 40 feet from the hole but dry and safe. It was the shot that young golfers feel too proud and too strong to hit. It was Jack Nicklaus’ shot. And now, it was Tiger Woods’ shot. 

And I knew right then that Tiger would go on to win the Masters.

https://joeposnanski.com/tiger-and-time/