Tiger Woods comeback: Media determines winners
Watching Tiger Woods string a concerted, sustained challenge for the Claret Jug over all four British Open rounds at Carnoustie, right up to the Sunday back nine, was something quite exhilarating to behold.
I wasn’t a professional journalist yet, much less a sports journalists, during Tiger’s prime but last weekend I got a glimpse of what a thrill it must have been to watch him close those 14 major titles, especially the ones during which he chased a lead down.
His chase, which fell away with a double-bogey at the 11th, was dubbed the Tiger Comeback and there was genuine belief that he could complete it with the capture of a fourth Open Championship. He had a shot lead ahead of the rest of the field at one point, as overnight leaders Jordan Spieth, Kevin Kisner and Xander Schauffele blew their front nine. It didn’t happen. Instead Francesco Molinari scooped the coveted jug and became the first Italian ever to win a major.
However, that will probably not prevent Woods from scooping the Laureus Comeback of the Year award when awards season rolls back around. Having spent the past ten years without a major and the bulk of that time oscillating from sex scandal to back injury, it is understandable why many were so awe-inspired by El Tigre’s performance at Carnoustie.
Tiger drew the lion’s share of the camera attention and his playing partner Molinari was basically a front row passenger to the Woods show on Sunday. And it is this camera attention and media coverage that could see the American golf great scoop all sorts of comeback awards.
My issue, though, is not with the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation or any other entity that gives dues to deserving sportsmen and women for their outstanding performances season-in, season-out.
It is with the media coverage that sees a lot of the stories involving your non-elite players not getting a deserving look at such awards.
I took on this issue because I have a particular proximity to it, as a result of a story I once did on rugby player Eduan van der Walt, whom I believed staged one of sport’s greatest comebacks.
Not many people know who Ed is – unless you’re an avid follower of Pretoria schoolboy rugby or the now defunct Vodacom Cup – and his story would have died at the hands of ruthless news editors were it not for the digital revolution that has cut down plenty censorship. I am now allowed to retell it without any of the gatekeepers.
I was a Times Media Group sports writer when, in 2014, a friend of mine who played for the Border Bulldogs alerted me to a mate of his who had been struck down by Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) at the end of the rugby season, while traveling down to Margate to visit his granny.
For the uninitiated, GBS is caused when your body’s immune system attacks your nervous system and puts you in an instantaneous state of paralysis. It’s like the choke slam of motor neuron diseases and can be described as a cross between the motor neuron disease that struck down Springbok great Joost van der Westhuizen and the one that paralysed Andre Venter.
It started with a small twitch in his hand as he was driving. It didn’t take long to advance up the body and eventually, once at his granny’s place, he could not feel his limbs. By nightfall he was in an emergency helicopter headed to Umhlanga – unconscious – where he fell into ICU.
The rest is explained in the story I wrote below that didn’t see daylight in mainstream print. It was meant to go into the Sunday Times, not because of the fact that it happened but more so because Ed rose from his death bed, played rugby again when doctors told him he’d struggle to relearn to tie his shoelaces and captained the Pumas to their first and only domestic trophy triumph of the professional era the following year.
As far as comebacks go, Ed’s was right up there with Schalk Burger’s Laureus Comeback gong of 2015. He too had come back from a life-threatening disease and he made a winning return. Ed’s comeback ranks comfortably higher than Roger Federer (2018), Michael Phelps (2017), Dan Carter (2016) and Rafa Nadal (2014). The only difference between Ed and all those Laureus Comeback award winners is that there was a billion times more media coverage on those sportsmen (who only had to recover from knee injuries or voluntary sabbaticals to win) than were on his valiant fight for his life.
In all my years as a sports journalist, where I’ve had the privilege of working under some incredible editors, both in the sports department and news (and lifestyle and business), it’s the lowest and most sour point. I wasn’t told why or even if the story would be spiked (unused, thrashed). I was left in the lurch. It could have been overtaken by another story but I would have appreciated the heads up prior to going to print, so as to not keep the Van der Walt family in hope. It could have been poorly written, who knows, but I would have appreciated the feedback.
I will never forget the call I got from Ed’s mother, who, after opening her home and heart up to me, told me how she had bought every English Sunday paper but didn’t see the story in it. She had allowed me a lengthy interview for the story, telling me about how they had lost Ed’s dad a year prior and how rugby was Eduan’s life. She told me how she had to change her own son’s adult diaper again, like he was an infant, as soon as he regained consciousness in hospital. She took me, visually, to the side of his bed where his frail body lay limp and brought alive the image of seeing her son struggle to move, and battle to so much as blink.
Ed had to relearn to clip his toenails and (I’ll never forget this) she smiled and chuckled at his boyish glee the day he took his own independent steps outside for the first time, after weeks locked indoors and using the walls for crutches.
He was her child in every way possible and she was his mother and his world. How he regained the strength to play again, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she was at Loftus for the first game he played on his comeback trail. They may have lost but Ed, playing at No 5 and captaining that day, played his most satisfying 80 minutes that day. The sweetener was the capture of the 2015 Vodacom Cup title, the last of its kind.
EDUAN van de Walt was paralysed from face down at the end of 2013 but last week he won the Vodacom Cup playing rugby for the Pumas in Cape Town.
The 1.96m former Blue Bulls development lock was diagnosed with an incredibly rare neurological disease called Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which is caused when your body’s immune system attacks your nervous system.
He spent weeks in ICU, where his mother Hanelie was by his side fearing the worst.
“I was going to see my gran one afternoon and I felt the power leaving my hand as I was driving,” Eduan said.
“I couldn’t grip anything strongly. My gran gave me a cup of tea but I felt I needed to see a doctor.
“Soon after being diagnosed I was paralysed for about two months and of those I was totally paralysed from face down for three weeks. At that point you have to go on a ventilator but they said my lungs were very strong because I did sports.
“We later found out that I had malaria as well. One of the treatments they used was to wash my white blood cells, so that I don’t have any resistance to disease. I started getting a fever after that.
“They did more tests and found out I had malaria, GBS, glandular fever, lung infection and CMV (Cytomegalovirus). There were a lot of things going on at the same time.
“I went from spending at least two hours a day on a rugby field to lying in bed and having people in the hospital washing me and not being able to do anything for myself.”
GBS is a cross between transverse myelitis, the disease that has confined former Springbok Andre Venter to a wheelchair, and motor neuron disease that struck down Joost van der Westhuizen.
It happens when your immune cells that are meant to attack foreign material start attacking the nerves. The body turns on itself.
There is no cure for it and, at its worst, the disease can leave the victim paralysed for life. To treat Van Der Walt, doctors used a method called plasmapheresis – or plasma exchange – followed by months of hydro and physiotherapy.
Not many know who Van Der Walt is but his is rugby’s most amazing comeback since Springbok World Cup winner Schalk Burger cheated death two years ago.
Last Saturday he came onto the field in the 55th minute in a match where the Pumas won their first piece of silverware by beating much-fancied Western Province 24-7 at Newlands.
The road there was protracted and painful.
“To give you an idea of what this disease takes out of you: I’d wake up and try to sit unassisted for 30 minutes and then go back to sleep again. Go to the bathroom, come back and sleep again for hours. That was my whole day. Getting back to rugby was tough; I could barely tie my shoe-laces.”
Here was a 28-year-old man telling his mother: “Mum I can brush my teeth now. Mum I can cut my own nails now.”
“We didn’t know whether he would live, let alone play rugby again,” Hanelie said.
“When he was in ICU, doctors told us that we should be grateful he was not on machines. He was hanging on by a string.
“His blood pressure was 60 over 30 (60/30mmHg) when it should have been 120 over 80 (120/80mmHg). He had nothing in him. He was paper-light. We really feared he was not going to make it. He couldn’t even talk.
“He’s such a sporty person. I thought, what am I going to do if he can’t walk or if he dies? Those things ran through your mind.
“I went to watch him play against the Blue Bulls at Loftus in March. He was the captain that day. I felt very proud. Rugby is his life.”
*GBS struck Eduan van der Walt down again following that triumphant Vodacom Cup campaign but this time there was no second fairytale. He had to quit the game but, most importantly, he won the battle for his life.
Sbu Mjikeliso writing for Fine Leg
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