Welcome Back, Tiger

From the madness of the NCAA Basketball tournament to the stretch run of both NBA and NHL playoffs, this weekend had no shortage of team sports’ magic and mayhem. You’ve got Villanova and Michigan State downing #1 seeds to go the Final Four, the ‘Nucks in a brawl with the ‘Hawks in a potential first-round preview, and the Raptors with a last-shot OT win over the Bulls. To be honest though, it was the DVR for a lot of those games as it was the individual play of one player that had me shaking my head in disbelief and glued to my HD most of Sunday.



With his finest red with white pin-striped shirt on, Tiger Woods once again reminded the sports world of what we’ve been missing for the past nine months. At the Arnold Palmer Invitational this past weekend, down by five strokes to Sean O’Hair after the third round, the buzz began as people wondered if Tiger would be able to make up the difference going into Sunday’s final round.

This was probably the most pressure he’s faced in a long time. Sure there was the Accenture match play event last month where he lost to Tim Clark who hadn’t made a bogey that entire round; though who could blame Tiger after making only one bad shot on the 15th? Prior to that, the only time he had gone FTW in the last nine months was during his victory over Guillermo at the EA SPORTS Gillette Champions of Gaming tournament in January.

I remember watching him at last year’s US Open cringing with every shot as he went FTW after a 19-hole playoff. I had no idea that it would be his last tournament for such a long period of time. For most athletes, the absence away from the sport would bring about some rust that would take some time to brush off. For most athletes, it would take a few weeks or a few games or a few tournaments to get back into the swing of things. Though as we’ve seen time and time again from the 14-time major champion, Tiger is not like most athletes.

On Sunday, following a mid-morning morning rain-delay, Woods would need 15 holes to reduce the five-stroke deficit and pull in to a tie with O’Hair playing in the final group. O’Hair could muster only one birdie all day and though he played with the lead, when you’re grouped with Tiger who was on fire on the final day, it must’ve felt as if it were only a matter of time before O’Hair would become one of many that would succumb to the pressure by Sunday evening.

On the 16th hole with Woods in the rough after gaining a share of the lead on 15, O’Hair would all but seal his destiny going for the pin with a 7-iron and coming short and wet to bogey the hole. On his swings, Tiger would go up and down for par to take his first lead of the tournament. On the ensuring hole, Woods would make it interesting with a bogey while O’Hair would make par setting it up for yet another dramatic Bay Hill finish.

With the night looming, the magic continued as Tiger would make two perfect shots to set himself up for a birdie putt no less than 12 feet away. O’Hair, who had been hitting right most of the day, just didn’t seem to get into a rhythm (could you blame him?) though he would par 17 to tie Woods and really did nothing wrong on 18 other than miss his birdie putt.

Though that was all that Tiger would need and in all too familiar position, as he did a year ago with O’Hair in the final group again and for the third time at Arnie’s tournament, Woods would drain the putt on 18th at Bay Hill FTW and pump-fist his way to his first victory since the US Open. It was his 9th victory in his last 14 PGA Tour starts.

"It feels good to be back in contention, to feel the rush," Woods said. "It's been awhile, but God, it felt good."

It’s a feeling that many, including myself, felt through each hole and every stroke on Sunday as well.

Welcome back to the rush of the winner’s circle, Tiger.

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Tonight's Dinner Conversation with My Brother Dex

For some life after Christmas can seem a little slow with a New Year's hangover and the rut of having to pay off the Christmas Visa after splurging a little more than you should have. I've just passed my first three months as Community Manager at EA Canada and the one thing my life is not, is slow.

I was having dinner with my brother Dex who came in from Toronto to do a photo shoot and we were catching up on each others' careers. He had moved out there to be closer to the fashion capital of the world, NY, as he's really gotten busy with his photography work and he was just in town for a bit to do some shoots here in Vancouver. As a fashion photographer I always thought he had one of the coolest jobs in the world...for obvious reasons

We both had this look of 'busy' on us as we chatted on different projects. I hadn't realized how many places I've had a chance to be involved with lately and how through my work, I've really had a chance to not only meet and work with some great people at EA, but also some pretty cool people from the gaming and sports community as well.

I mentioned having just returned from Orlando where I met up with the other Community team members and that lead to a talk about doing some more traveling (which I absolutely love to do) to Phoenix for the upcoming NBA All-Star Game in a couple of weeks.

Our plan is to hang out and follow Tim Ahmed the winner of the NBA LIVE Jersey Creator contest who created this year's Rookie and Sophomore Jerseys. Check out the coverage of him at Wed night's Knick's game where he got a chance to hang out and was even mentioned over the PA system with his jerseys. Cool stuff. Add this to covering our NBA Live Challenge Finals and it should be a great weekend in Phoenix.

We'll be hanging out this weekend and watching the Super Bowl with family and friends which, yes, even us folks in Canada do every year. I let him know that we had our Madden Bowl tonight and even showed him some footage from our new Inside EA SPORTS Blog where Raczilla has been posting pictures from all night. We checked out some of the pics and he thought it was pretty cool to see Evander Holyfield along with a handful of football pros chillin and playing some Madden. Congratulations to Tampa Bay's Antonio Bryant who took home the hardware this year.

He did critque some of the pics being the photographer that he is and I try to take some pointers from him as he's pretty good at capturing light in his shots. I guess it takes some steady nerves as well when you're shooting eye-catching beauties. I totally thought our guys did a great job with the shots and he's just a perfectionist

We talked about the upcoming Fight Night Round 4 Community Event and he got a kick out of some of the videos by our producers. He was pretty impressed with some of the early screens he saw of the boxers and even compared lighting to some of the stuff he's done with athletes sweating and how lighting is affected by that. I told him I'd reserve him a copy for his PS3 when the game comes out this summer.

He asked how the Canucks were doing. And that's pretty much when the conversation ended. That's another blog post altogether! I did mention that I do get a chance to hang out with the Canucks' Ryan Kesler who will be touring and checking out our facilities and doing a motion capture session at EA Canada. I'll be blogging and taking some pics for EASW, so that should be pretty cool too.

We flipped on the HDTV to catch a favorite of mine Stand By Me on the screen and I noticed him glance over with a pleased look on his face and a quiet nod.

For the first time it kinda felt that he thought that I actually had one of the coolest jobs in the world. I'd have to say it's still up for debate, though I am pretty grateful for the opportunities that I've got, since at the end of the day, I still get to go to work and pick up a controller from time to time as well. Who's luckier??

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