Michael Thompson’s swing coach said Tiger Woods ‘lost his soul’ to be that good
You might not know a ton about Michael Thompson, last week's winner of the Honda Classic, but he seems like a good kid with a solid career ahead of him. What you probably didn't know is Thompson has been instructed by the same person, Susie Meyers, for 14 years.
According to an ESPN report after Thompson's win, Meyers and the 27-year-old PGA Tour pro were working on things with his swing, trying to figure out the best approach to make Thompson the best he could be and for some reason dropped this bit of knowledge about, of all people, Tiger Woods.
"Our goal is to have a new fresh beginning every shot, every tournament and see what we can do with it," Meyers told ESPN. "We got sucked into that consistent thing when Tiger was having his long run of great golf and we thought that it was possible to do that. But what we found out was that Tiger lost his soul to do that and it's just not worth it."
Yep, you read that correctly; Meyers said Tiger Woods lost his soul to be the best golfer in the world and the two didn't think that was the best approach for a positive life.
Now, the first time I read that sentence I thought it was a bit strange, but is it that far off? Tiger is one of those rare, rare athletes that not only want to be great, but want to be the best of all time. To do so, you have to basically surrender a big chunk of your life to becoming one of the best athletes ever and maybe a part of that is something Meyers was hinting out.
I think we see people like Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods, two athletes of this generation that seem to only care about being the best, and maybe a part of who they are is lost in their art, but I'm not sure you can criticize them for wanting to be the best of all time. There are plenty of golfers like Fred Couples who simply enjoys life each day, on and off the golf course, and then there are a few select golfers like Tiger that come around every few generations always trying to change this or that to be even better than before.
Woods hasn't won 14 majors because he was simply more talented than the rest of the golfers out there, it had a lot to do with who he is, his work away from the tournaments and how much he truly cares about winning.
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