But today, nine years later, I have had my compensation. I have seen Tiger Woods, the incomparable Tiger Woods, defy the experts, the sceptics (myself included) and the naysayers who said he could never, ever win another golf tournament.
Ironically, the greatest sporting comeback – in my lifetime anyway – was almost anti-climatic.
Tiger Woods, 42, never really looked like being denied victory in the Tour Championship at East Lake, his first win in five years and the first since the last of four career-saving back surgeries, in April last year.
I thought I was going to watch this storyline play out back in July, in the wee small hours, when Tiger hit the lead on the 10th hole at the Open at Carnoustie. But his once famously steel-like nerves betrayed him. Some mending of body, mind and soul was still needed.
Winning against all odds is nothing new to a man who describes himself as a ''walking miracle''. But this was fresh ground, even for Tiger.
Before this he had already established an Everest-like standard for sporting greatness, and bravery, when he won the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines, with a double stress fracture in a leg and a wrecked ACL in his knee, beating Rocco Mediate on the 91st hole.
It's Tiger's knack for making the impossible possible that has made him a once in a lifetime player for golf fans like yours truly, that draws me back to the TV morning, noon and night to watch what's happening in the world of golf.
Non-golf fans won't get it, I know, but it's a game that regularly serves up some of the most dramatic, televised sporting theatre, as evidenced by today's chaotically-emotional scenes that had grown men (Tiger included) biting down hard to keep the tears at bay.
And if that sounds like I've conveniently forgotten Tiger's well-documented, self-inflicted scandals of yesteryear, well no, I have not, but l guess, like the thousands of fans who were chanting his name around the 18th green at East Lake today – and the friends texting me between shots today – perhaps we figure he has paid due penance for his sins, and have moved on.
So, was this the greatest sporting comeback of all time? Well, I've already qualified that by saying "in my lifetime'' because I wasn't born when Ben Hogan won the US Open at Merion in June, 1950, some 16 months after surviving a car crash that almost killed him.
As detailed in author James Dodson's brilliant book "Ben Hogan: An American Life''(2005), Hogan threw himself heroically across his wife Valerie to save her as a bus ploughed into his car on a foggy night in Texas in February, 1949.
Hogan was hospitalised with a broken ankle, a double fracture of the pelvis, a broken collarbone and a smashed rib. Then surgeons had to tie off the main arteries to his legs to save his life. It was said he might never walk again, let alone play golf.
But he famously proved those experts wrong too, winning at Merion, Pennsylvania after beating two others in a strength-sapping 18-hole playoff. And, just to make this comeback even more extraordinary, he won another three majors in 1953.
Tiger's 2008 US Open triumph over the gallant and ever-smiling Mediate was the last of his 14 majors. Today's win now reignites the speculation as to whether a re-energised Woods can win another four to match Jack Nicklaus's all time record of 18, or even surpass it.
Only an incurable pessimist would bet against that now.
His attempts to rewrite the history books – again - should make for more great viewing for us golf fans too. I can't wait.
