Pastor Steve’s Blog Sep 30, 2018 “Tiger Woods Does It Again.” This is the headline as I write my blog post. I wasn’t sure I would ever see him win again on the PGA regular tour. But he did it. It was an amazing comeback for someone who has gone through so much adversity…some of which was of his own making of course. But adversity nonetheless. It made me stop and think and remember back when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA, just north of San Diego. It was the late 1990’s when I was serving with the Marines as the Chaplain for Third Battalion, First Marines (3/1), also known as the “Thundering Third.” A professional Golf Tournament was being played just down the road at La Costa Golf and Country Club and Tiger Woods was going to be playing. He had just started his career then. So I decided to take my son David and go to the tournament. At the beginning of our time there, we followed Tom Watson and Sir Nick Faldo for a while and then headed off to see Tiger. Even then the crowds were already quite large around him and made it hard to see. But we were able to get in some good looks at his golf game. I am glad we got the chance to see him at that early stage in his career when he was talk the of the game as the “up-and-coming phenom” to be the next great Jack Nicklaus. Coming back to reality in the realm of today, I watched some of the golf tournament last Sunday, after doing a few hospital visits after church, and saw Tiger win. I knew he had a good lead coming off his Saturday round, but wondered if he could hold on. And he did. He finished it off. The crowds I saw on TV Sunday were so much larger than what we experienced when we saw Tiger at La Costa. And the outright enthusiasm of the crowd running and yelling was a sight to behold, so much so that Tiger had to fight his way through them to break free so he could finish the last hole. Don’t see anything like that here is the States, but do see that at the concluding hole at the British Open Championship. The sight was amazing and I am glad to put that in my memory banks. A historic comeback. Rick McDaniel, author of the recently released book “Turn Your Setbacks into Comebacks” published a blog post on Tiger’s win and gave 4 reasons for his comeback success. I think these 4 things can also apply to us as individuals and as a church. “First, Tiger made the necessary changes he needed to make. Next, his success with his changes produced the needed confidence for him to move forward. Third, the first two produced powerful momentum in making his comeback possible. And finally, Tiger refocused on his dreams. He did not allow past setbacks to define his future.” Good food for thought.