World of golf needs a healthy Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods missed a short putt for his par on 18, then shook hands with his playing partner and headed immediately to the NBC set for a lengthy sit-down interview.
Then, because the Hero World Challenge is his tournament, he stuck around to present Rickie Fowler with the winner’s trophy and posed for pictures.
After finishing only his second full 72-hole competition in 833 days on Sunday, Woods, who turns 42 later this month, didn’t immediately head back to the locker room for a long regimen of stretching and massage. The potential impact a healthy Woods could make on the tour is so great that you almost expected him to be carried off the 18th green, attended to by dozens of doctors, specialists and therapists, then immediately packaged in bubble wrap and loaded on a cruise ship to get him back to North America from the Bahamas in one piece. He could then be transported from tournament to tournament in that fashion for the benefit of all.
But Woods was apparently not feeling that delicate afterwards, and he sure didn’t look to be hobbling around during the four days of elite competition, three of which were very good.
Other than being a “little scratchy” with his irons, he pronounced himself “overall very pleased.” “No pain,” he said. It’s important to stop and remember this is almost exactly where we were with Woods a year ago today. He’d played the same Hero Challenge, popped in a lot of birdies early and was drawing positive reviews for his swing, which many saw as smoother and less violent than the one with which he tormented the best golfers in the world for so many years and also ripped his back to shreds.
The thinking was that type of more controlled swing would help Woods return to the tour as a regular par- ticipant, even if it meant he wasn’t anything like the old Tiger. In January, he played in the Farmers Insurance Open but missed the cut, and then pulled out of an event in Dubai. In late April, he told the world he’d had yet another surgical procedure on his back, his fourth such surgery.
Then came his infamous Memorial Day arrest when police found him asleep in his car with a cocktail of various painkillers in his system. The mug shots looked awful, as they always do for celebrities. Once again, commentators from the sports world and beyond dismissed the chances of Woods having any meaningful future in competitive golf.
In the end, that promising return in the Bahamas last year proved to be a false start, a mirage, and so could this one.
Woods said he’s weaned himself off painkillers, and said on the weekend he wasn’t at all concerned whether his back would allow him to play all four rounds.
“The issue was how was my scoring going to be, how was my feel,” he said.
The answer was positive on most fronts for a player who improved his ranking to 668th in the world from 1,199th with his performance. His third round Saturday got a bit messy, but he returned with a thundering 31 on the front nine Sunday to finish ninth in an 18-man field, ahead of the likes of Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka.
Rather than the smooth swing that had critics purring last year, Woods returned with a great deal more clubhead speed generated by something less measured and more like his old swing.
“He’s playing golf, not playing golf swing,” commentator Gary Koch said.
His driving distance was right there with that of big hitters such as Johnson and Thomas, and even the old recoil was there Sunday when he really tried to launch a few shots. It would be easy to speculate a more aggressive swing simply won’t hold up over time, and Woods could soon find himself back on the sidelines, betrayed again by his wonky back.
So we’ll just have to wait. Nobody really knows. Even Woods can’t really know.
“We’ll figure out what’s the best way to build, the best way to build my schedule for the major championships,” he said when asked about how active he might be in 2018.
“Play enough, but don’t play too much.”
He’s in a similar position to tennis star Roger Federer, who missed the final part of the 2016 season to injury and then returned to enjoy a brilliant 2017, including two more Grand Slam titles. The 36-year-old Federer skipped the French Open and the gruelling clay court season, then won Wimbledon in July, benefitting by his decision to modify his schedule.
In theory, Woods could do something similar. The difference is he also needs to find a way to stay sharp, and there will be such demand for him to participate in all manner of tour and non-tour events. His impact on television alone could be enormous at a time when many analysts suggest golf’s TV numbers are slumping, maybe for good.
There is spectacular competition on tour. But Woods never has been replaced as an eyeball attraction. Last year, the Masters had its lowest TV ratings in more than a decade.
With an estimated net worth of more than $740 million (U.S.), you would think no one can entice Woods to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He should be able to play when he wants, pick and choose his tournaments and courses. If he chooses, he can keep travel to a minimum.
He knows Jack Nicklaus won the Masters at age 46, although that was three decades ago in a sport that barely resembles what we’re seeing now. To be able to get back to the top, Woods would have to make a lot of careful, intelligent choices to manage himself effectively. That means parking the ego and putting golf and his health above every other possible consideration, including business.
We don’t know if he can do that, and we don’t know whether the back will allow him to.
But Federer’s return to prominence was a wonderful thing, and regardless of how you feel about Woods as a person, you have to concede a full season of golf with him in all the big events could be similarly spectacular. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering a variety of sports for The Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.