Tom Brady Duffing His Tee Shot at Pebble Beach Says Less About Him Than it Does About Golf Itself

Golf Digest - Tom Brady has immense wealth, model looks and style (Just look at that cardigan!), and a record seven Super Bowl rings. But the living legend has never appeared more human than he did on Friday at Pebble Beach. ...

Specifically, with Tom's tee shot on the opening hole at Pebble Beach.  ... 

That's about as embarrassing as it gets.

OR, if you're like much of the country that always rooted against Tom, it's about as good as it gets. And for those people in particular, here's another angle of Brady's brutal shot:

Talk about a pretty DEFLATING way to start your day, huh? Sorry, couldn't resist. ...

As for Brady, he shook off that tough start to play pretty well. Kinda like he did that Super Bowl against the Falcons a few years back. Respect. So as much as we'd like to pile on, these things happen can happen to anyone. Even an 8-handicap who happens to have seven Super Bowl rings.

Nice pun, Golf Digest. That one never gets old. 

But with all due respect, everyone's missing the point with the "this proves Tom Brady is human" angle. This moment says nothing about him. The fact he ashook it off and still managed to have a good round does. But duffing his tee shot says less about the GOAT than it does about the game itself. Why we love it and hate it with the same white hot intensity. 

We've watched Tom Brady come back from down 28-3 in a Super Bowl. Throw for 500 yards in another. Win another at the age of 44. Play in howling blizzards or icy fields like he was on a practice field at OTAs in June. Take hits from metahumans whose mass X acceleration should've cracked him like an egg and jog back to the huddle. Find himself with various Watt or Bosa brothers bearing down on him unblocked and still deliver a perfect spiral into the hands of his intended target 20 yards upfield. Start for 22 seasons and only suffer one injury that caused him to miss any games. And in none of that time did his performance drop off or dip below that of the best in the business at the most demanding position in all of sports.

But put a golf ball on a tee right in front of him, sitting there just waiting to be hit with a device precision-engineered in a laboratory to do exactly that, and even he is capable of skulling it 10 feet. Or striping it 300 yards down the middle of the fairway in the exact same situation with the exact same equipment.

That's golf in a nutshell. It's why it's so rewarding, but so maddening. It's a paradox and that's why those of us who like it, love it. Those who do it for fun become obsessed by it. It's you against yourself in your own head space every time you stand over a shot and draw the club back. And the ones who are too set in their ways to ever get involved will never understand. 

Just know that none of this means Brady is human. You could put together a foursome of Hercules, Achilles, Superman and Buddha, and everyone of them could be asking for a mullie at any given tee shot the same as Brady or any of us. That's not them. That's golf. 

P.S. Since he didn't reach the Ladies Tee, did Brady observe the Hog Out Rule? My curiosity is only an intellectual one.