When’s Tiger Coming Back?
Even He Isn’t Certain
LEONARD SHAPIRO
NEWTOWN SQUARE, PENNSYLVANIA |
You have to also suspect that he went
against his doctors’ advice last month
when he decided to enter The Players
Championship, then limped out to the
parking lot after posting 42 for nine holes.
This time, he said he’s going to listen
to their advice and will be “smarter” in
the way he comes back from his injuries.
“I don’t know when that will be,” he in-
sisted. “That’s the frustrating thing about
it right now is I don’t know. I am getting
stronger, starting to get more explosive
again. I’m going to eventually start prac-
ticing and playing again, but not until I’m
100 percent ready.”
One aspect of all this is not so dif-
ferent, of course. That would be Woods’
penchant for secrecy, for bending the
truth so that only he and a few members
of his inner circle actually know what’s
going on.
Woods wouldn’t rule out playing in the
British Open in two weeks, though that
seems as remote a possibility as Woods
ever being totally forthcoming with information that seems so silly to conceal.
When a professional football player
gets hurt, the team trainers and doctors
will almost always tell you the specific
injury, prognosis and timetable to get him
back on the field. And that’s in a contact
sport where it’s in the best interest of a
player not to have his opponent know that
he’s playing on a sore knee or a wounded
shoulder.
Last time we checked, no one has ever gang-tackled Woods on a course. So what would have been the harm of him coming to his own signature tournament last week and laying out he most likely timetable his doctors have in mind? Surely, they have an estimate when he’ll be able to start hitting wedges, when he’ll be able to take full swings, when he’ll be able to grip it and rip the driver the way he’s
always done and return to competitive
golf.
Many of us who write about the game
for a living had to laugh out loud at the
2010 Masters when Woods talked about
“all my friends in the media” at his first
news conference almost six months after
his car accident and subsequent revelations of serial infidelities.
Friendship is the last thing most of
us are looking for with Woods or anyone
else we cover. What we’d like, instead,
is occasional one-on-one availability –
you know, the way Nicklaus and Palmer
always managed to make the time – and
the ability to tell our readers when they
might expect to see him back on the golf
course.
Would it have been so difficult for
Woods to come here, announce that he
will not be playing in the British Open
and that his doctors have told him he’ll
probably need another X amount of weeks
New beard, same guardedness
turning to tournament golf?
By the way, the best guess, based on
nothing really, is that Woods seems most
likely to be pointing at the Bridgestone
event at Firestone the week before the
PGA Championship in mid-August. And
when he does come back, Woods also has
no doubt that he can return to the good
old days of dominating play and more
major championships.
“I feel like my best years are ahead of
me,” he said at one point last week. “I feel
pretty confident what my future holds and
very excited about it.
“I’m excited about coming out here
and being ready to go instead of trying to
kind of patch it, which I’ve been doing for
awhile.”
When that will be, only Woods and his
doctors will decide. As usual, they’re not
telling right now. So what else is new? l
