The day before Tiger Woods suffered a severe car crash that he is still working his way back from, the golfing legend was filming a series of videos for GolfTV and Golf Digest called “A Round With Tiger,” featuring some of the biggest stars from the world of sports and entertainment getting a chance to play with one of the all-time greats. The series, with permission from Tiger and the stars who filmed with him, is getting its release this month.
Among those who got to step on the course with Woods was Dwyane Wade, as the future Basketball Hall of Famer tried desperately to get some tips on his golf game from the legend, while also discussing the things that make their sports similar, despite the obvious differences. The episode released on Tuesday and is a fascinating conversation, that includes some pretty funny moments like D-Wade hitting a house while Tiger insists it was a good swing.
The part that was most interesting to me was when they talked about playing angles, playing spots, and the visualization and artistry required of their sports (around the 10 minute mark of the video above). Wade explained how he learned that from Kobe on the basketball court and then how everything has changed now with guys like Stephen Curry.
Wade: It’s crazy that you play everything on angles, right, like when you think about golf, you think, oh, I need to hit it straight at it.
Tiger: No, it’s never straight at it.
Wade: Right. You play everything on angles.
Tiger: Everything is an angle.
Wade: That’s crazy because like on the basketball court, I learned this from Kobe. Kobe played spots. So he would know, OK, like the elbow.
Tiger: If you can get there. How can you get there?
Wade: You need to get there, right? He knew if I get to that spot right there that’s a money spot for me. So I need to get there. And he wasn’ looking at the rim. He was looking at the spot. He just gets to the spot. And he knew if he gets to the spot, that it was cash. It’s crazy. So I learned that from him. I was like, OK, so he played angles, he played spots. Now I started playing angles and spots.
…
Wade: Right. I don’t know about you — you’ve been watching basketballfor a long time. I’ve been playing and watching for a long time. But the stuff I see Steph Curry do, I’d be like, there’s no way, there’s no way them shots are going in and they be cash. I mean, how?
Tiger: He’s running the other way.
Wade: I’d be like, how? But, in my mind, I’m like, it doesn’t really makesense. The fact that he can shoot like that and them is what we would call, “bad shots.” In our generation, that are bad shots. But for him, they are his shots.
Tiger: He’s totally changed the game.
It’s a cool conversation between two legends of their sport about how they approach the game and see things differently. So many people play golf trying to find the straightest path to the hole, but Tiger sees everything in angles, always playing to spots rather than the target of the pin. Wade talking about learning that artistry from Kobe is cool, as is how he’s still blown away by the changes basketball has gone through and how good the current stars are at shooting and how it’s changed those angles and spots completely.