Tired Tiger bids a defiant farewell
TIGER WOODS missed the halfway cut for only the third time in 21 Opens but there was a rainbow at the end of a tempestuous first visit to Northern Ireland. Allaying any fears he is set for another lengthy lay-off, he said: ‘I’m going to have my hot weeks when I am in contention and I will win more tournaments.’ Alas, the final major of the season was a week of the other kind or, as he put it: ‘The weeks when I’m just not going to be there, something that wasn’t the case 20 years ago, when I had a different body.’ The tired soul who talked about the difficulties of keeping Old Father Time at bay 24 hours earlier stayed a stride ahead in the second round, where he showed not only a marked improvement in his mobility but also his score, with an eight-shot improvement on his opening 78. ‘I grinded my way around and I’m frustrated I didn’t handle the par fives well,’ said Woods (right). ‘I was in perfect shape on all three of them and finished playing them in one-over. If I’d finished the job on those holes, I’d be still playing. ‘It’s disappointing because this is a major and I love playing in these events, the incredible atmosphere, the stress of it,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, this time I haven’t been able to do very well.’ He looked exhausted at the end of only his 12th round of competitive golf in three months. There won’t be any next week, either. While the circus moves to Tennessee for a WGC event, Woods said there is no chance of him walking in Memphis. ‘I’m going to take a couple of weeks off to get ready for the FedEx play-offs.’ After a majors season where he was King of the Hill again at Augusta before three non-events in a row, Woods said it wasn’t comparable to the stop-start time he had in 2015-16 before his spine was fused. ‘Back then were some of the lowest times of my life,’ he said. ‘This is just not playing and scoring well. I’ve got to continue doing what I’m doing, to get stronger so I can continue to play at a high level. It’s panning out. I won a major championship this year.’ This is Tiger circa 2019, then. Brilliant, occasionally. Stiff and immobile all too often. At least we know now why he’s hardly played — and at least he’s not in pain.