{"id":21090,"date":"2014-08-08T00:26:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T16:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=21090"},"modified":"2014-08-07T23:27:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T15:27:48","slug":"whats-the-rush-woods-hurries-back-to-pga-with-little-chance-of-salvaging-sorry-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/08\/08\/whats-the-rush-woods-hurries-back-to-pga-with-little-chance-of-salvaging-sorry-season\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the rush? Woods hurries back to PGA with little chance of salvaging sorry season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tiger<\/a>
Tiger Woods. Photo by Jim Epler \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOUISVILLE, Ky.\u2014A fan wearing a Chicago Cubs hat caught in the crush around the third tee at Valhalla Golf Club raised both hands above his head to show off an Illinois license plate. It read: \u201cTIGR WDS.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who questioned the wisdom of Woods returning to practice Wednesday, just three days after a bad back forced him to quit his last tournament mid-round, it seemed like an omen\u2014and not a particularly good one. The unofficial motto of those sad-sack Cubs, after all, is \u201cWait \u2018til next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a doctor, but it sounds like good advice to me.<\/p>\n

Woods has played only nine full competitive rounds since surgery at the end of March to relieve pressure on a pinched nerve. His best finish this season is a tie for 25th. He withdrew from two other tournaments and missed the cut in a third. He has always said winning majors is what matters most and his chances of sneaking past the field to capture this week\u2019s PGA Championship\u2014with less than a full round of practice under his belt\u2014are about the same as the Cubs have to steal the pennant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a totally different golf course than what I played in 2000,\u201d said Woods, who won the PGA here that year in a playoff with Bob May. \u201cThese greens are all different. I have my book from 2000; it\u2019s useless. There\u2019s some new things that we have to learn out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoey (LaCava, Woods\u2019 caddie) has been here on the ground. He\u2019s got a pretty good handle on it,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019ll run through some more of it as we go.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point, it\u2019s worth noting that he\u2019s not the Tiger Woods of 2000, either. It\u2019s hard to imagine that guy even talking about trying to win a major on the fly. Back then, preparation was his hallmark and Woods was collecting majors at such a furious pace that he seemed to be on cruise control in his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus\u2019 record of 18 career majors. That was true even after he won the 14th\u2014and so far last\u2014of his majors by beating Rocco Mediate, despite playing on a broken leg, in the 2008 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

Then the sex scandal of 2009 turned Woods\u2019 life and career upside down. What followed was a run of questionable decisions, compounded by more injuries. He won eight tournaments the last two full seasons he has played, but hasn\u2019t seriously contended on the final nine of a major in five years. On top of that, he lost nearly all of his major sponsors, save Nike, and hasn\u2019t had much luck attracting new ones.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a psychologist, either, so I can only speculate about what Woods\u2019 motivation might be for rushing back to tournament play after the rough patch he has endured. But my guess is that at age 38, Woods is increasingly nervous about the game he helped grow moving on without him. He\u2019s already watched a generation of youngsters he inspired to take up the game blow their tee shots past his. It must be an unsettling feeling.<\/p>\n

As golfing rewards go, the only two big ones still out there this season are the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup. After his practice session, Woods was asked whether he can win this week and he answered tersely, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you need to do,\u201d came a follow-up question, \u201cto do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Woods was not much more revealing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHit it well and make every putt.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the moment, qualifying for the U.S. Ryder Cup team is not a realistic goal, either. The top nine U.S. players in the points race qualify automatically and Woods currently ranks 69th, sandwiched between two guys\u2014Troy Merritt and Luke Guthrie\u2014you\u2019ve likely never heard of.<\/p>\n

In most years, Woods would be a lock for one of U.S. captain Tom Watson\u2019s three wild-card selections. Instead, they\u2019ve played a cat-and-mouse game in public the past few weeks, with Woods saying that he\u2019s worthy of the pick and Watson saying he won\u2019t commit either way until the formal announcement of the team on Sept. 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t answer that yet,\u201d Watson said again Wednesday at Valhalla, where he\u2019s in the field. \u201cA lot of things can happen between now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Michael Jordan, the other sporting great to whom Woods has been compared, it\u2019s hard to think of him setting foot on a golf course just for the sake of \u201cbeing out there.\u201d It\u2019s sad to see, but it happens to the very best of them.<\/p>\n

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org and follow him at\u00a0<\/em>www.twitter.com\/JimLitke<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOUISVILLE, Ky.\u2014A fan wearing a Chicago Cubs hat caught in the crush around the third tee at Valhalla Golf Club …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-jim-litke","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}