Tiger can turn to Fred Couples for inspiration
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — Tiger Woods needs professional help, and he is getting it.
This is the best news on the 14-time major champion in a while, and it really should be allowed to stand on its own for a good while longer.
There is challenge enough in getting a firm grip on strong prescription medicines for pain and sleep problems, and according to his agent, Tiger has entered an in-patient treatment facility to treat this issue with all seriousness.
With all that going on, and an Aug. 9 arraignment on a DUI charge still to come, golf falls almost too far down the list of priorities to be mentioned.
Yet it will be mentioned and discussed and debated each time his name comes up in any conversation anywhere.
Will Tiger ever win again? Will Tiger ever play again? Will Tiger be able to stand it if the answer to either question is no?
This is the monster he created by being a monster on the golf course, scoring a runaway Masters victory at 21, earning a record 683 weeks atop the Official World Golf Rankings and coming closer than anyone probably ever will to Jack Nicklaus’ total of 18 major championships.
To think of a player like that being shut out of competition at the age of 41 is a difficult task, and for many fans impossible to consider.
We’ll use Fred Couples as the template for some educated and frankly optimistic guesswork on what may be ahead. Freddie has long dealt with back problems that sometimes get better but never go away, so what has he achieved in the game since Tiger’s current age of 41?
Well, Couples won a PGA Tour event, the Houston Open, at 43. Had a couple of runner-up finishes over the next few years, too.
Couples also had a great run at the 2006 Masters title. He played in the final Sunday twosome at 46 and finished in a tie for third place behind eventual winner Phil Mickelson. That gave Freddie a taste of what it is was to feel dangerous again, and gave fans a chance to celebrate his career.
Then, the following season, Couples barely played at all. It just didn’t make sense to try to play through the pain, so he started looking forward to the senior tour, where life begins again for top golfers at the age of 50.
That has turned out well, with Couples winning 12 times in eight seasons on the PGA Tour Champions circuit, including a victory earlier this year at the Chubb Classic in Naples. He also had an enjoyable crossover experience at the Masters in April, earning an 18th-place tie. Matter of fact, Freddie’s got eight top-20 finishes at Augusta National after the age of 41.
Would such a resume satisfy Tiger if he were to approximate it from here on out?
Winning again, at least once on the regular tour and more often among the seniors.
Contending again at the Masters, where familiarity with the course and a smaller field combined to push Nicklaus and Couples and other former champions up the list long past their prime.
Finding a balance between resting his back and brief, strategic periods spent sharpening his game.
That last one seems the most unlikely. Tiger’s swing is violent compared to Couples’ easy motion, and Tiger has never been one to enter a tournament unless he believes he can win. That means he would either have to cut down on all the obsessive preparation or lower his competitive expectations or both.
Here is what Couples said in a Golf magazine interview in March about the compromises his back problems have forced.
“I don’t sleep much,” Couples said, “and in the last year, I didn’t play for almost eight months. As I got better, my body started to feel really, really good, but once I swing a club, it all goes haywire. I can play. I can go hit the ball, but I might wake up tomorrow and not be able to move.
“Since around 1993, I haven’t practised putting for more than 10 minutes. That’s almost 25 years. It’s just physically impossible, and I know that.”
Somehow, with an abundance of skill, Couples has been able to stay highly competitive in spurts and does not apologize when nothing but rest will do. I’m hoping it will be the same for Tiger, and that he will learn to find joy in that.
That would be a bright goal to place out beyond this cloudy summer. That would be more real than anything else we’ve expected of Tiger these last few years, or he of himself.