By Mardeio Cannon | OBSERVER Columnist

A little over a year ago, Tiger Woods was involved in a horrific car accident when his car went over the side of a southern California road and rolled over several times.  He had just finished hosting the Genesis Open golf tournament in the San Diego area.  Woods’ injuries included a shattered ankle and two leg fractures, one which was a compound fracture. Besides just narrowly escaping a life threatening crash, Woods feared he was going to have his leg amputated.

Most of Woods’ legions of fans all over the world never thought that he would ever compete in a competitive golf tournament again.

However, the competitive juices started flowing again. After about a year of rehab, Woods was practicing playing golf.

However, it took the Masters golf tournament, the most celebrated golf tournament of all the Majors, for Woods to shock the world again.

After countless hours of rehab and hours of practice on the golf course, Woods stepped on the golf course on April 7 at 1:35 PST and teed off at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. This was a momentous occasion in the history of professional golf, as the greatest golfer of this era came back again to compete in the sport that he used to dominate for so many years.

Woods shot a very respectable 1-over par on his first round of the Masters — a tournament that he has won and wore the green jacket five times. The next day would determine if he would make the cut. Woods shot three-over the next day and survived the cut to play on the weekend. He made it to Sunday where he wore his celebrated red and he was treated to a rousing ovation as he made the final walk to the 18th green. Who knows whether he will ever win another Major, and he plans to compete later on this year. Just seeing him competing again was the highlight of the tournament. Good luck, Tiger, we all want to see you roar again.

LIVES LOST TOO SOON

We were saddened to hear about the tragic accident in Florida that took the life of former Washington Commander (formerly named the Redskins) quarterback Dwayne Haskins. Haskins was only 24 years old and was making a comeback with the Pittsburgh Steelers who are looking for a replacement for future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.  Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin said that Haskins had made a very favorable impression with him and his new teammates. 

This is the second traffic death recently of finely tuned athletes who died by crossing busy streets. We lost Inderkum High School basketball player Anthony Williams in March after he was killed on Lonetree Drive, a very busy street in Rocklin.

I feel bad for the families of these two young men who I believe should still be with us, however their overconfidence on busy streets cost them their lives.

Lord knows, I hope that I never hear about accidents like these again.