The end of Tiger
...but golf is still nowhere near ready Theyhave had plentyoftime to prepare for...
ONE road runs through the sliver of land that is Jupiter Island. From south to north, it heads straight and true past the Blowing Rocks Preserve with its limestone outcrops, its loggerhead sea turtles and its palm trees until it curves and hits the mansions where America’s super-rich have made this the second wealthiest real estate enclave in the US.
Only 817 people live in this beautifully manicured part of Florida that is squeezed between the Indian River on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Tiger Woods’ estate, modern and sleek, is hidden behind dark gates and a screen of thick tropical vegetation.
Other golfers live here too. Nick Price, Gary Player, Greg Norman and Lee Trevino are all said to have residences on Jupiter Island. They share it with the singer, Celine Dion, captains of industry and high-ranking former politicians who did their public service, then moved on.
Woods’s estate, with its elegant lap pool and its three-hole golf course and its jetty on the river, has a number to identify it but that is all. He may not live in a gated community any more, as he did in Isleworth, near Orlando, in the days before his fall from grace, but it is impossible for him to live anything approaching a normal life.
Many of his neighbours on the 10-mile long island have chosen to give their homes an identity as well as a number. They have names like Wave’s End, The Summit, Xanadu and Odyssey’s End. Those names tell of owners who have arrived. These are not people who are still travelling or still striving. They have achieved what they wanted to and they have come here to rest.
Woods is drawing closer and closer to that moment. There was a time when newspapers and television stations would report every week on the places where he was. Now we report on the places where he wasn’t. Once, we covered triumphs and new records and new levels of dominance. Now, we post medical bulletins. We try to anticipate what the finality of his retirement will feel like.
Ten days ago, Woods could not even make his Press conference at the Genesis Open, the tournament the Tiger Woods Foundation hosts at the Riviera Club in Pacific Palisades. He rescheduled once, then cancelled. Maybe he was hurting, or maybe he just did not see the point.
Rory McIlroy, who lives a few miles away from Woods, found it hard to escape the poignancy. ‘I never thought I would say this but I felt sorry for him,’ he said in an interview with the Guardian last week. ‘I just felt bad for the guy, that his body won’t allow him to do what he wants to do. I can’t imagine anything so debilitating where you can’t even stand up to do a Press conference.’
It feels as if we are approaching the end of the end-game now. This month, Woods withdrew from the Dubai Desert Classic with a back spasm after shooting a five-overpar 77 on the opening day. It was only his third tournament after a 15-month absence. At December’s Hero World Challenge i n the Bahamas, he finished 15th out of an 18-man field, then missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.
The problems are not a recurrence of the nerve pain that kept him out for so long. ‘It was like hitting your funny bone a thousand times a day,’ Woods told CNN in Dubai before the tournament started. ‘It becomes not so funny.’
This is different but it is clear he is still vulnerable to back problems. No date has been set for his return. Maybe there will not be a return. Some are now suggesting he will not play before the US Masters in early April.
In the past, it has sometimes seemed as if the Masters was the only thing that brought him comfort and reminded him of the way things used to be. It feels as if he has moved out of the reach even of its recuperative powers now.
Last week, it was recorded that he was not at the Honda Classic at PGA National, a few miles inland from Jupiter Island. Maybe he will be back for the Masters. Maybe he will not. Golf is bracing itself for his retirement announcement and still hoping it never comes. The sport has had plenty of time to prepare for his goodbye but it is still nowhere near ready.
That is one of the reasons why everyone is willing him to defy the odds. He is the underdog now and so we are all rooting for him. How stirring it would be if he could somehow rise again. What a story it would be if he could wave away all the pain he has suffered and all the humiliation and summon one last great hurrah.
Maybe, people were saying a few months ago, he might even resume the pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 Major victories by adding a 15th triumph to his own wins in the biggest tournaments. That is looking like a pipe-dream now. Sometimes it is easy to forget that he has not won a Major since 2008 — or a tournament of any description since 2013. No one has filled the void he has left. Jordan Spieth and Jason Day have both excelled and risen to world No1 but neither has been able to make their dominance stick. Dustin Johnson became the latest player to rise to the top of the rankings when he won in California but he does not have the charisma to bring fans back to the game.
For some time now, it has felt as if golf is waiting for McIlroy. Most see him as Woods’ true heir. He is regarded as the man with the talent and the personality to dominate the sport and be its new figurehead. The world No3 has shone brightly and has the Majors to show for it but injuries and inconsistency have hampered his attempts to establish himself as the undisputed leader of the pack. McIlroy and Woods meet up now and again. This part of South Florida is go l f ’s own Magic Ki n g d o m . Wo od s , McIlroy and Nicklaus are all here. And the new First Golfer, President Trump, bases himself at Mar-a-Lago, a few miles further down the coast at Palm Beach, at the weekends.
His resort has been dubbed The Winter White House and the world’s leading golfers have been co-opted as his courtiers. McIlroy took some
I feel good, but not great... I don’t think that I will ever feel great...
heat on social media for playing 18 holes with President Trump last Sunday but it was Woods that Trump chose as his first golf buddy when America elected him its leader. A couple of days before Christmas, Trump and Tiger teed it up at the Trump International course in West Palm Beach.
That’s normal for Woods. He played with Barack Obama, too. That’s his level. People e are still fascinated by him. m. ‘I’m drawn to him,’ said d McIlroy in a recent interview with the Sunday Independent in Ireland. ‘He’s an intriguing character because you could spend two hours in his company y and see four different sides des to him.
‘He’s thoughtful. He’s smart. He reads stuff and educates himself on everything. But he struggles to sleep, which I think is an effect of over-training, so I tell him to calm down sometimes. He’d be texting me at four o’clock in the morning: “Up lifting. What are you doing?”
‘But I’ve seen what his life is like in Florida. I’ve played golf with him and said: “What are you doing tonight? Do you want to come and have dinner with us?” And he can’t. He just can’t. And for me that’s unfathomable. I could not live like that.’
Woods devotes more and more time to the charitable work of the Tiger Woods Foundation and plays an active role in the lives of his young children, daughter Sam and son Charlie. His ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, lives a 25-minute drive away from Woods’ home and they are on good terms. ‘He is a great father, father,’ she has said. A few times a month, W Woods also visits The Woods Jupiter, the restaurant he opened in 2015 a few miles away from his home in the bijou Harbourside d development it shares withwi a Tommy Bahama, other upscale clothes shops, a fine artar gallery, a ‘luxury pet boutique’ called Pucci and Catana and motor cruisers bobbing at their moorings.
The place seems to be thriving. It has already won local awards and on Monday night it was packed and buzzing. The waiters and waitresses wear Nike-branded uniforms. Even in a life away from golf, Tiger and the swoosh will not be parted.
Banks of television screens have been positioned around the semicircular bar. Several of them are dedicated to the Golf Channel. On Tuesday lunchtime, it was showing Michael Breed, the host of The Golf Fix slot, teaching a detailed swingcoaching lesson. Even at his own restaurant, there can be no escape from thinking about what Woods needs to do to put things right.
Most of all, he needs to try to stay healthy and get into the rhythm of competitive golf again. Maybe that is an unobtainable dream after all the wear and tear his body has taken. ‘I feel good, not great,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever feel great as it’s three back surgeries, four knee operations. I’m always going to be a little bit sore.’
In that interview in Dubai, Woods said he just wanted to be able to function. He said he had accepted he was always going to feel sore after a round. And he was asked what work he had been doing on his swing. ‘I play away from the pain,’ he said. ‘I don’t really care how it looks. I just play away from it.’
He is 41 now. Some would like him to walk away and enjoy the life he has earned with the brilliance he has achieved. ‘I’m glad he has other things in his life,’ said McIlroy. ‘He has his kids and is so committed to them. If he didn’t have that, it would be so hard. He is still young, he has another half of his life to live. Golf is minuscule compared to watching your kids grow up. That’s where my priority would be now.
‘Playing tournament golf would be a bonus and awesome but life is more important than golf, which is what people have to remember when talking about Tiger Woods. Everyone sees him as a golfer, not a person. Tiger doesn’t owe anyone in the game. He has nothing to prove to anyone. I just hope he gets healthy and happy.’
Some observers are cynical about the prospects of Woods ever fashioning a properly competitive comeback. Others say he is still desperate to contend again. Maybe he still cherishes that great goal of chasing down Nicklaus’s record.
Nicklaus would understand that better than anyone. At his offices in a collection of buildings called Golden Bear Plaza, a montage of scenes from his life plays in the reception area illustrated by quotes from the greatest golfer there has ever been. ‘My goal has always been to win more tournaments than anyone,’ one of them reads. ‘I think we all want to do something in life that separates us.’
Woods has separated himself, of course. He was the greatest golfer of his generation. But as he leaves his mansion on Jupiter Island and drives north, now and again he might catch sight of one of the other house names on Beach Road and think that it would be a good fit for his place too. It is called Almost Heaven.