OLIVER HOLT: Tiger Woods’ desire to push through pain shows his indomitable spirit as a sportsman.

Tiger Woods’ longest day ended at 3:17 p.m. when three blaring sirens at Augusta National signaled the cancellation of play and a temporary end to his suffering.

Battered by torrential rain and the cold gnawing at his damaged right leg, the greatest golfer of his generation could barely walk.

He had dropped five shots in his previous three holes. He placed 54th out of 54 remaining players in The Masters in the third round. He was three shots adrift at the bottom of the field.

But this is not a story designed to elicit sympathy. This is a story that should arouse admiration.

There are many ways athletes can inspire those around them and in the past Woods did this almost exclusively by winning. Now, with a broken body but an unquenchable spirit, things are different.

Those of us who followed him through the hills and valleys of Augusta in a seven-hour downpour on Saturday were in luck indeed.

His ordeal—or so it seemed—had begun a little after 8 a.m. in pouring rain and a light mist and something approaching solitude.

The patrons had been kept at the gates until the players resumed what was left of the second round and so Woods stood at Amen Corner in front of empty stands and lifted his tee off on 12th over Rae’s Creek and to within five feet of the pin . .

It was the beginning of an epic.

Woods missed his birdie putt and stayed at +2, close to the cut line. He started his drive from the redesigned 13th tee, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his blue gilet and hobbled down the fairway, bent into the wind.

The weather was nasty. Not as bad as the squall he played at The Open at Muirfield in 2002 when he shot 81 in his third round. But not far away.

All morning he followed his playing partners, Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland, as they marched forward.

The “hardware” Woods referred to in the right leg that was so badly damaged in his Los Angeles car accident two years ago reacts badly to the cold and it was clear that he was quite uncomfortable. His expression was taut and grim, but Woods had a goal and he wouldn’t budge.

You may have seen a passage of video footage known as The Crawl, which chronicles the last few hundred yards of the 1997 Hawaii Ironman and shows an agonizing battle between two exhausted athletes, Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham, to finish first. to come in line.

It is not until one of them has crossed the line that the narrator reveals that they were competing for fourth place.

The series is inspiring because it sheds light on the purity of the desire to compete and the strength of character that burns in some athletes.

Maybe that’s why it felt so moving to follow Woods around the last seven holes of Augusta in the wind and rain on Saturday, to feel the galleries wanted him, to feel his desperation to succeed when everything what was at stake for him. was if he could make the cut.

This is a man who has won the tournament five times, who has one of the greatest comeback victories the sport has ever had when he won here in 2019, a man who has won 15 Majors, a man whose peak is already full , a man who played a lot of pain, and yet he played those seven holes as if he were pursuing the greatest prize in the sport.

Like all of us, Woods, 47, has many shortcomings, but while it’s hard to erase any of what he’s done off the track from our minds, his indomitable spirit as a sportsman is at the heart of our view of him.

This morning he knew he had no chance of winning the tournament. He fought for the right to play the last two rounds. He fought for the right to push his ravaged body through the pain barrier by playing 25 holes a day.

Not everyone has that. Some of the big names who left the tournament on Friday went off with a whimper and looked beaten long before the 18th. Not boss. That would never be his way. And he also fought for pride.

He knew he hadn’t missed the cut at The Masters since turning pro in 1997 and that if he made it this time around he would equal the record of making the cut for 23 consecutive appearances held jointly by Fred Couples and Gary Player. Woods has already made a lot of history at Augusta, but this was an opportunity to make more.

He was already limping heavily on the 13th fairway when the cold bit his leg. Hovland was dressed as if he were going cross-country skiing in Norway, gloves on both hands and a thick woolen cap on his head.

Woods cut his second shot into the crowd, but then lifted his third over a tributary of Rae’s Creek guarding the front of the green. The galleries cheered, but Woods’ eyes were fixed on the ball. “Sit,” he said furiously, “sit, sit.” The ball was. Woods made par.

“Damn, Tiger,” one of the customers yelled at him.

He was still right on the cutting line. His approach to the par-5 15th was right at the flag. He hit the pin but rolled back over the green.

The galleries wanted him to sink his 20ft birdie putt and as he disappeared into the cup a huge roar rolled through the natural amphitheater there. Woods tipped his cap to the visitors, but it was noticed that he was limping even more as he walked back across the green.

Woods made par at 16, but dropped a shot at 17, where the pin was in a devilishly hard position. One more hole to go and he was back at +2. Back on the cutting line.

The rain fell again. It fell to pieces when he teed off on the 18th and he hooked his drive into the trees. He carved it out on the fairway and fired his third shot onto the green. He had a 35ft putt for par.

By the time he reached the green, he was soaked. His caddy handed him a towel and he tried to dry off and wipe his forehead with it, but the towel was also soaked and Woods wiped it off wearily and irritated.

He stood over his putt and the huge gallery that surrounded the green, sheltered by a giant canopy of massive green and white umbrellas, compelled him to enter it.

It was a valiant effort and there was a moment when it looked like it was going to crawl into the hole, but it just missed the right lip and came to rest a foot away.

Woods tapped it in for a bogey to finish on +3. The crowd came toward him, but Woods looked utterly dejected. He thought that all the pain and effort he had put into the search had been for nothing.

He was wrong. Others, including his friend Justin Thomas, had succumbed to the onslaught of the elements and given him a way back and now +3 was the limit. He had made it.

He could still play two league rounds at Augusta. He would go to play with increasing pain in that right leg. The rain would get harder and harder, conditions increasingly hostile.

Starting his third round on the tenth tee, he would get a double bogey on the 15th, plunging his ball into the water on the 16th and double bogey that he would also be three shots adrift at the bottom of the field at +9 played with less than half of the round.

With even Augusta’s greens overwhelmed and play suspended for the day, he would reach a point where he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

He would play for nothing but pride and love for the sport. The desire and hunger to do so is what makes Woods an iron man of golf.

It’s what separates him from so many of his rivals. Long after the winning is over, that’s what still makes him great.