Long gone but not forgotten
Tiger Woods refuses to give up his quest for major championships
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — The golf world is looking at this 97th PGA Championship far differently than Tiger Woods seems to be.
To CBS, the year’s final major is “glory’s last shot,” and so many feel it is for Woods as well. He pretty much has to win his first major championship in going on eight years this weekend to find any way into the season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs that could extend his season. If he does poorly, as he did in failing to make the cut in the previous two majors this year, that season will have ended before summer does.
Because of that, many assume he is looking upon this event, as one inquisitor put it yesterday, as “one of the most important PGA Championships you’ve ever played in.” As the man spoke those words, Tiger Woods looked at the guy like he’d lost his mind.
“I’m not looking at it like that at all, actually,” Woods said with a smirk. “I’m just trying to get my game better for years to come. If you would have asked me right after I had my back surgery last year, what does your career look like, I didn’t really have much of an answer. I was hoping to get back out here. “Now I’m back out here at a level
where I years since he last won a major and he seems eternally stuck on 14 the way some weekend duffers see their handicap stuck on 18, so the number seems more taunting than attainable.
As he sorts through his struggles with injury, swing changes and the rebuilding of his too-often-public private life, Tiger Woods has refocused his outlook on both golf and what the definition of his future is in his sport.
Despite the number 40 waiting for him on the calendar in December, he continues to talk of that future as if he still has a bright one in golf, which is why he doesn’t see this week’s tournament in the same light as many in the media do.
Several weeks ago, during an event publicizing Labor Day weekend’s Deutsche Bank Championship, Woods further clarified the difference between his view of the future and other’s. They see only the immediate, which this week means the PGA at Whistling Straits.
Tiger Woods? He’s a longterm thinker, not just a longdistance hitter.
“We’re trying to build something for the future,” he explained. “I know that people are looking at it for the season, for a major championship. I’m looking at it more as in years.
“There are plenty of guys who have had enormous success in their 40s. Look what Vijay (Singh) did not too long ago throughout his 40s. He’s won more times in his 40s than anybody else.
“I still have the club head speed and the ball speed to hit the ball out there and take care of the par-5s and that’s something that’s important going forward
against these new, young kids who hit the ball so far.”
So while Woods will be closely watched this week, he is not living in this moment, although he’s striving to succeed in it. It’s just another week of golf, another step toward what he’s not quite sure but believes is bound to be good.
“I’m just trying to get better, and that’s all I’m trying to do,” Woods said. “That and enjoying doing other things off the golf course, like the restaurant (which he just opened in Jupiter, Fla.), with my foundation, growing my golf course design business.
“But when I’m on the golf course, time practicing, training, I’m trying to get to a level where I can be consistent on a tournament by tournament basis, where I give myself a chance to win each and every time I tee it up. That’s what I’ve done most of my career, and that’s what I’m used to. I’d like to get back to that point again.”
That may not happen this week on the challenging links course that stretches along wind-blown Lake Michigan and if it doesn’t his season will be over. But, he wants you to know, his career will not.
Not by a longshot.