Tiger Woods hysteria resumes this week on the PGA Championship, within the wake of his extensively proclaimed ‘‘greatest comeback in sports history’’ final month on the Masters.
I’m going to say this one time and one time solely, and I’m going to be very, very, very, very, very clear about it:
It was not the best comeback in sports activities historical past.
Alas, it is just the second-greatest comeback in golf historical past, perhaps the fifth-greatest comeback in sports activities historical past and possibly not among the many 25,000 biggest comebacks in human historical past.
Let’s begin with golf comebacks.
Tiger Woods: Marital and again issues. Goes 11 years between main titles.
Ben Hogan: Near-fatal automotive accident — fractured pelvis, chipped rib, damaged collarbone, fractured ankle, blood clots, hospitalized 59 days, may by no means stroll once more — in 1949. Won U.S. Open in 1950.
Let’s transfer on to a handful of different sports activities comebacks.
Muhammad Ali: At his profession peak, the heavyweight champ was banned from boxing from 1967 to 1970 after refusing navy service. Regained the heavyweight title twice after his return, together with at age 32 in 1974, knocking out George Foreman within the ‘‘Rumble in the Jungle.’’
Greg LeMond: In a looking accident in 1987, the 1986 Tour de France champion was shot with 100 lead gun pellets in his again and proper aspect, was airlifted to a hospital, misplaced 65 p.c of his blood quantity and was instructed he was inside 20 minutes of bleeding to loss of life. Returned to biking and received the Tour once more in 1989 and 1990.
Monica Seles: Ranked No. 1 on the earth, she was stabbed within the again with a 9-inch blade by a 38-year-old spectator whereas enjoying a tennis event in Germany in 1993. Did not play for 2 years, resumed in 1995, then received her 10th and last Grand Slam title on the Australian Open in 1996.
George Foreman: Lost his title to Ali in 1974, stop boxing in 1977, grew to become an ordained minister, returned in 1987, grew to become the oldest heavyweight champ ever in 1994 at age 45 and launched a line of George Foreman Grills that may be present in storage gross sales from Peoria to Poughkeepsie.
(Going again to Tiger for a second: In all equity, he had 4 again surgical procedures and misplaced his Gatorade endorsement deal.)
Let’s end up this week’s work — it’s wonderful they nonetheless pay me for this — by working down some nice, unlikely comebacks elsewhere in life.
Richard Nixon: Lost to JFK in 1960, misplaced California gubernatorial race in 1962 and retired from politics. Unretired to win the presidency in 1968 and 1972. P.S.: If he subsequently had bounced again from Watergate, you might retire the ‘‘greatest comeback’’ award in his title.
Robert Downey Jr.: From a 1992 Academy Award nomination to unemployable addict — drug abuse, a number of rehabs and a few jail time between 1996 and 2001 — to fronting large film franchises similar to ‘‘Iron Man’’ and ‘‘Sherlock Holmes.’’
Ulysses S. Grant: Entered the Army, stop the Army, drank excessively, fell into melancholy and struggled as a civilian. After rejoining the Army throughout the Civil War, he was promoted to high basic of the Union forces, kicked the Confederacy’s butt and twice was elected president. On $50 invoice.
John Travolta: Vinnie Barbarino, ‘‘Saturday Night Fever’’ and ‘‘Grease,’’ then nothing for a decade, then ‘‘Pulp Fiction’’ obtained him A-listed to the top of the Spago reservations line.
Japan and Germany: Both had been written off after World War II. You wouldn’t consider what Skip Bayless stated about them.
Old Spice: They went from smelling like your grandfather to ‘‘smell like a man, man.’’ Sources inform me Vladimir Putin and Justin Bieber douse themselves in it.
Betty White: The lady is 97 years outdated and nonetheless will get work. Somewhere in there at a while, she needed to make a comeback from one thing.
Mayonnaise: Every time you assume it’s out, it will get pulled again into the condiment recreation.
Lazarus: Uh, he was lifeless. And then he wasn’t.