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TAME TIGER
Woods’s fall from grace almost complete after missed cut at US PGA
LIKE so many who are down on their luck, Tiger Woods retreated to a sports bar last night to drown his sorrows. His own bar, as it happens.
It opened for business last Monday close to his home in Jupiter, Florida and when it was planned its owner probably had evenings of celebration in mind when he returned from tournaments. The first week might even have been chosen to coincide with the US PGA Championship, with Tiger no doubt envisaged in the thick of things come the weekend at the event he used to own. Instead, his plan for the first Saturday night was to pull up a bar stool and watch.
Sporting images don’t come much more poignant than that.
No jokes, please — at least he made it through to the weekend at the season’s final major. His fleeting appearance lasted all of 60 minutes as he completed the formalities of his second round, held over from the previous evening because of a vicious storm that blew through the region.
Like Elvis in the years when he became a gross imitation of his former self, Tiger can still draw a heck of a crowd.
Making it to the Wisconsin wilderness by 7am is no mean feat but the sell-out audience knew Woods would be done before the normal working day began, and so thousands packed the grandstands over the closing holes. ‘It’s supposed to go right,’ said Woods plaintively at the 15th, as his putt for a par went left. Yet another bogey, and with it any hope of making the halfway cut had gone.
It took 20 years for Tiger to miss three cuts at the majors. Now he’s missed three in a row, and four out of the last five. Not just missed them either. That grotesque world ranking, currently 278th and destined to plummet far below 300 over the next month, does not lie. Woods is down to compete at this week’s low-key Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina, an event he has never even contemplated competing in before.
It’s the place where the rank and file go to find their game and the desperate in their last-ditch efforts to make the four lucrative FedEx Cup play-off events that follow. The perfect stage, then, you might think, for this Tiger. ‘I’m just going to sit back and go through it with my team, what I need to do, and whether it’s the right move or not,’ he said. ‘We’ll decide in the next couple of days.’
If they decide against playing, that will be it for Woods as far as this PGA Tour season is concerned. The top 125 compete in the first FedEx event and Woods is so far off the pace, in 186th place, only a win in Greensboro would gain him a place. Another graphic example, therefore, of how far he has fallen. When he speaks after tournaments these days he leaves reporters shaking their heads in wonderment. ‘I’m pleased at the way I’m starting to hit the ball,’ he said yesterday. ‘To have the control that I need, that’s starting to come back, and that’s nice. The confidence is growing quickly. That’s the fun part. I just need to get more consistent.’
More realistic might be a better shout.
Woods is not done for the year. He has a contractual obligation to play in the PGA Tour season opener for 2015-16 in California in October. He’s also playing in Mexico and his own event in the Bahamas. And when all that’s done, he will turn 40 at the end of December.
At least on the last two holes yesterday, he left his audience with a fleeting reminder of the Tiger of old. Freed from any pressure of trying to make it through to the last two days, he struck a fine five-iron to the difficult par-three 17th and rolled in the 20ft birdie putt. At the daunting 18th he followed a good drive with a solid iron into the middle of the green and two-putted for par. He tipped his cap to his loyal fans.
‘What am I going to do now? I’m going back to Florida and go to my sports bar to watch the leaders play. How about that?’ he said.
Tormented by his play on day one, Woods reacted furiously to one more putt that came up short and spoke the words that summed up the feelings of virtually everyone who follows sport. ‘What the f*** is wrong with you?’ he asked, rhetorically.
Sadly, we seem further than ever from discovering the answer.
Among the players Woods will have been watching last night was Justin Rose, who had one hole of his second round to complete yesterday morning and mustered a par, which was no mean feat given it was the hardest hole on the course.
It completed a fine 67 for the inform Rose, who followed up his tiedsixth finish at The Open last month by finishing fourth and third in his last two outings. If he’s overdue a victory, when it comes to the majors the same could certainly be said about one of the two men who started the third round ahead of him — Australian Jason Day.
Unlucky at the US Open, where he battled valiantly against an attack of vertigo, he finished one shot off the three man play-off at The Open at St Andrews.
The leader, however, was Day’s fellow countryman Matt Jones, for whom this was giddy territory indeed having never been placed higher than 17th at the halfway stage at a major. He led by two from Day and three from Rose, with Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth five behind and world No1 Rory McIlroy nine back.