TIGER REMAINS HOPEFUL FOR MASTERS
The Masters is now just two weeks away.
Tiger Woods says he has been practicing but hasn’t been able to play a round of golf since early February, when he withdrew from a tournament in Dubai because of his bad back.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Unfortunately, I think we’re thinking the same thing: that it’s not particularly likely Tiger is going to be able to play in the major tournament he first won 20 years ago.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope he plays. But if you haven’t played even one practice round in six weeks, plus, obviously, no competitive rounds, and your back gave out on you so quickly the last time you tried to play, and the Masters is right around the corner, well, that’s not good.
Speaking to USA TODAY Sports’ Steve DiMeglio on Monday, Woods was characteristically rosy about his prospects, and who can blame him? What do we expect him to say? Put a fork in me, I’m done, it’s over?
Of course he’s not going to say that. Even if he thinks it, he’s not going to say it, nor should he. Tiger is not 60, even if his body thinks he is. He’s 41, which is not that old in men’s golf. He might be finished, but it would be foolish for any of us to declare it until he does, and that’s not going to be anytime soon.
Listen to what he said during a stop in New York to promote his
new book, The 1997 Masters: My Story.
“I do have a chance (to play),” Woods said about this year’s Masters. “I’m trying everything I possibly can to get to that point. I’m working. I’m working on my game. I just need to get to a point where I feel like I’m good enough and I’m healthy enough to do it.”
Tiger has until the day the Masters begins, April 6, to decide if he can play or not, and that’s as it should be. If he wakes up that morning and decides he can do it, he should play. Fans will dash to the first tee by the hundreds if that happens. There’s still nothing else like Tiger in the game of golf, and likely never will be.
But what if he’s truly not 100%, and perhaps not even close? Does he still decide to give it a go, simply because it’s the Masters, where he has won four times, but not since 2005? Or is the threat of further injury just too overwhelming?
This has to be killing Tiger. No one has ever loved the simple act of competing more than he has. What a cruel fate this is, to have to sit still and rest and sleep, unable to play the game he loves, as the tour moves on without him, week after week, month after month. You know he is bored out of his mind when, two weeks before the Masters, he’s out promoting a book.
Tiger has brought this on himself, of course, with the way he swung the club and the way he trained and the way he overtrained and the way he lived. Nonetheless, it truly is stunning to behold one of the greatest in history crumble like this before our eyes.
Unless it’s all temporary. Unless he really is going to get better. Unless it’s just setting us up for one of the most magical and improbable sports comebacks of all time. I don’t know. Do you?
In his dreams, Tiger has to come back to win one more Masters, right? And then another, and another? And if he dreams it, you know millions of his fans are dreaming it too. Why not?
“I’ve been a part of so many Masters over the course of my career, I know exactly what it takes to get ready for that event,” he said. “Now it’s my job to go out there and get ready. I hope I can.”
On that last point, he’s hardly alone.