The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Tiger signals his resolve
Well, Tiger Woods’ long silence ended. Predictably, with a mass outbreak of hysteria. But as he’s so fond of saying himself, “it is what it is”.
On Sunday, Tiger’s Twitter account – his preferred vehicle for his limited public pronouncements recently – broke from worthy news about his Foundation to a lone, familiar figure on the range.
Woods was hitting a mid to short range iron, extremely smoothly. A halffilled bucket of balls and a sizeable divot in the turf indicated clearly this wasn’t a brief outing. And to add that this was serious business, there was his swing monitor as well.
There was just one swing and two words added to the short video – “Making Progress”.
It’s the first sign of Tiger hitting a ball since his February car accident, so obviously golf Twitter, absent of any restraint or perspective, was going to go ballistic. Only a few stopped short of already putting him into a Green Jacket in April.
Three million views were recorded in three hours, helped of course by everyone and his aunt retweeting the thing. In one tweet, pondered Tony Finau among others, Tiger had just lassoed in a fair whack of the PGA Tour’s $40 million PIP fund for public engagement.
The residue of February? Just one thing, the sleeve on his right leg we saw when he was on crutches is still there.
This may be simply cosmetic, though.
I’m not being cynical to point out that everything about this video, down to the most minute detail, will have been carefully controlled before it was released. That’s just modern media, and also how Woods now works.
He’s battled hard – and largely successfully – to regain control of his public image after the scandals. Nothing is left to chance.
But the main difference to gauge from the video is Tiger’s shape. As we’ve remarked before, Woods has always had incredibly thin lower legs, even in the Navy SEAL training days. They looked almost spindly in the video.
In recent pictures and now this, Tiger looks a lot less bulky and – ironically – considerably healthier than he did just before the accident.
In the TV interview with Jim Nantz at the Genesis Invitational just a day before the crash, he looked worn down by a recurrence of back problems.
Woods has been living with acute pain for years – he was clearly using too much medication at one point. You can’t imagine February’s injuries did anything but add to that burden.
And that’s why you have to steel yourself with reality.
The single thing the video tells us is that Woods is serious about competing again, and that wasn’t a given.
His friend Justin Thomas recently suggested that quality of life rather than competitive thrill was his main aim post-accident.
That established, this is simply just “making progress”, as the tweet stated. Nine months of enforced rest may have helped with his other issues, but it’s still a gargantuan leap to imagine him enduring the stresses of four rounds of major championship competition, let alone winning.
The great thing about this video is there’s now a real prospect of having Tiger Woods back at some sort of golf. Given the crash, that’s really a joyous thing for the game.
Competing again successfully at the top level?
That would be the best story in my 33 years covering golf, and as a reporter I always root for the story.
As an old colleague used to say: “There’s ALWAYS a story. Only it’s almost never the one you want.”
THE LAST EUROPEAN TOUR WINNER
The Race to Dubai closed on Sunday, with Collin Morikawa winning both the event and the season.
The pleasant and respectful American is the last winner of the European Tour from just 10 events played, only three of them being actual Tour events – two Dubais, and the Scottish. For some, this is an insult.
Equally, one could suggest if the guy who won the Open, a WGC and the season finale hadn’t have won the Race to Dubai, a steward’s inquiry would be necessary.
You could go down the rankings and say the first guy who played 20 events or more – Min Woo Lee in this case – was maybe a more deserving, loyal winner. But that kind of ignores the reality of the tour and of golf in 2021.
Covid depressed the European Tour’s prize funds drastically. Thankfully, with the DP World Tour coming, that will be addressed. But the residual effect was points in the ranking race diminished over 2021. Secondly, we now know the pipe dream of the European Tour being a competitor to the PGA Tour is officially over.
What it is now, in the reality of golf in 2022, is a complementary tour to America. A change of pace, a pleasing distraction, mostly in January, July and the late season.
That’s actually the best – perhaps only – place for it to be now.
RORY’S PASSIONATE FRUSTRATION
It was a curious thing indeed. Rory Mcilroy, after a final round slump at the DP World Championship, appeared to tear his shirt open Hulk-style in frustration.
Pictures of him told the story. Over the years you get accustomed to occasional outbursts of passion from frustrated players after rounds. Never seen a ripped shirt, though.
I have no issue with it at all, if that’s how Rors lets off the steam. Saves potentially breaking a toe kicking the decorative plant pots (not joking, it’s happened).
Is there a serious side to it? Not really. Except for one thing…
No European golfer gets as much attention as Mcilroy does, even in the now seven-year major drought. In the national media it tends to be “Rahm? Hovland? Who they? What’s Rory up to?”
If he starts to become a figure of fun from these emotional outbursts, that’s ultimately going to be damaging. Do the shirt ripping in private, mate.