What a week for the vintage sports crew.
Tom Brady, age 39? Headed to his 7th Super Bowl.
Venus Williams, age 36? Headed to her first Grand Slam final since 2009.
Roger Federer, age 35? Headed to his first Australian Open final since 2009.
And I’m sitting here watching 41-year-old Tiger Woods sniping drives into canyons down at Torrey Pines.
Oh, look. He has to take a drop where his ball passed the hazard. Yeah, those are the rules in golf. So that’s a penalty stroke. He’s measuring two club lengths. Yep. Oh, there’s his attempt to hit a massive draw around some trees to the green.
No dice. His third shot on this par-4 15th hole did not draw massively. It landed in some rough, short right of the green.
Tiger is 2-over par as I write this, walking to that ball buried in that thick grass in the bluffs north of San Diego. Somewhere nearby, a paraglider hangs over the cliffs. I wonder if Tiger wishes he could join him.
How did the “Greatest Hits” tour of sports this week avoid Tiger Woods? How did this narrative of “Look At How Awesome The Old Folks Are!” take a wide turn away from Tiger’s celebrated return to golf?
After all, Tiger’s healthy now. Or, healthier. It’s hard to describe anyone who’s had two microdiscectomy — spell that, quick — surgeries as “healthy”. But he’s as healthy as he can be, and it’s a new year, and he’s got his new TaylorMade clubs and he’s at his West Coast womb, Torrey Pines. Tiger has won eight times at Torrey Pines. He achieved his greatest non-Masters moment there, the “Bury My Major At Wounded Knee” U.S. Open win in 2008.
Incidentally, that was his last major championship win. George W. Bush was president.
The short answer is, golf is not a game that embraces easy narratives. Golf is very hard and very mental, and Tiger right now is not the mental giant he once was. Tiger’s confidence, which used to rank about a ‘6,000’ on a scale of 1-to-10, is hovering closer to a ‘3’ or a ‘4’, if he was going to be honest with himself.
How could it not? He hasn’t won since 2013. The golf world has passed him by. Twenty somethings like Jason Day and Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth have left him in the dust. Tiger is ranked 663rd in the world, for God’s sake.
Listen, this is just a Jock Blog. Tiger’s played 15 holes in 2017 as I write. He’s set to play four times in five weeks to see how his body responds, how his swing responds, how his putter responds, how his head responds. One day does not a Tiger conclusion make.
But there is so much evidence that says Tiger may not have a Brady/Venus/Roger run in him anytime soon.
It’s not absolute. I have a deep, weird suspicion that he has one last magical run at Augusta National left in him. That’s a long way away, however and it may never happen.
Back to the TV. Tiger’s 4th, a pitch from that rough, landed about 10 feet from the pin and rolled down a slope away from the hole. He’s got about 18 feet for bogey.
Nope. Tap-in double bogey. He’s 4-over walking to the 16th tee. That’s a tie for 133rd.
Looks like Tiger may have the weekend off to watch Venus and Roger play tennis down in Australia.
The long slog back has just started.