Is that dodgy knee finally taking its toll on Tiger?
TIGER WOODS leads several of golf’s marquee names who have opted out of the Accenture World Match Play Championship in Arizona this week.
That has angered the US Tour and left the tournament sponsor less than chuffed at a time when golf needs to hang on to all the investment it can get.
But at least Woods may have had good reason to call off.
Only three weeks ago, he equalled his worst-ever score on the Tour — a 79 at the Farmers Insurance Open — which once again raised questions about just how strong his surgicallyrepaired knee is holding up.
Former Open Champion Tom Lehman knows only too well the problems Tiger is encountering.
He battled through a shoulder injury during his worst season in 17 years on the US Tour in 2008 when he slumped to 142nd on the money list.
But, he explains, Woods is in uncharted territory, given the extra pressure the modern swing imposes on the body.
“The whole game is now about power, and how to maximise club head speed,” 54-yearold Lehman explains.
“It is all about getting the club on the right path, to maximise as much speed into it to hit the ball as far as you possibly can.
“Now, how is that going to hold up in the long run?
“Well, the evidence is that in trying to attain this extra speed, you are more prone to injury.
“Then as you get older, I think it is going to be more difficult to maintain that rotation and flexibility, and everything else that goes with it.
“It is definitely a different game, a vastly different game because you could never do that with a ball that spun a lot.
“If we had tried that with the old Tour balata, we would never have found it because it would have been so far off line.
“But it is what it is, and that’s the way golf is played nowadays.”
Woods could justifiably say that he is giving the World Match Play— which he’s won twice— a miss this week purely on a precautionary basis.
To notch up a third win, he would have to play six rounds of golf between Wednesday and Sunday.
Throw in some cold weather such as they had last year, and it is not the ideal preparation for going to the Florida swing and on to The Masters.
Woods’ left knee first underwent surgery for scar tissue and two tumours back in 1994.
Then after he famously won the US Open virtually on one leg in 2008, the same knee had reconstructive surgery to its anterior cruciate ligament.
And make no mistake about it, there can be no doubt Woods must carry some mental anguish about how it is holding up.
Tom Lehman asserts: “For a right-hander, the left knee is certainly potentially the one that can give you the most problems.
“If you hurt your right knee, you are supporting it on the backswing, but you are not using it like you are the left knee when you are leading the downswing.
“So you are putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the left knee.
“That is why I have always wondered if the reason for him tweaking and changing his swing again was him feeling it could not support his left knee, and how it was feeling and reacting.”
So Tiger will still be the talk of the club house this week, even though he will be a couple of thousand miles from the action!