Eye-popping length combined with incredible shot-making, a sizzling short game and an ability to seize the moment is how Tiger Woods dominated golf for nearly two decades.

He was the best, arguably ever, having accomplished things not even the player whose records he so viciously pursued, Jack Nicklaus, had done (except for that one biggie, of course).

Woods’ reality now, of course, is altogether different. He faces an incredibly long and difficult road in front of him, if he’s even able to take it.

“My doctors have advised me not to play the next two weeks, to continue my treatment and to let my back calm down,” Woods said Friday on his website, announcing that he was withdrawing from the upcoming Genesis Open and Honda Classic. “This is not what I was hoping for or expecting.”

It was always an ambitious goal, four starts in five weeks. Woods lasted all of three rounds, missing the cut at Torrey Pines then flying 12-time zones to Dubai, only to pull out of the event after physically struggled through an opening 77.

It’s commendable that Woods is trying to come back, and assuredly frustrating that it’s requiring so much effort. But how much more at this point is he really able to give?

At the Hero World Challenge in December, it appeared Woods had been able to practice in the weeks leading into his first competitive event in more than 15 months. In contrast, at Torrey Pines, he was far less sharp, leaving you to wonder how much time on the range he had been able to put in this year.

Perspective is important when considering where Woods has been, where he’s at and where he’s going. Prior to 2014, Woods won 79 times on the PGA Tour, including 14 major championships. He withdrew from just five tournaments and missed the cut nine times in 18 years. At one point, he went six straight seasons without missing a cut or withdrawing.

Since then? Woods, who turned 41 in December, has withdrawn or missed the cut 11 times in 23 starts. From the time he underwent his first back surgery in April 2014, Woods has completed 72 holes in just nine of the 19 tournaments he has entered.

It’s been nearly nine years since Woods won his last major, the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Yet how long has it really been? Consider this:

• Jason Day was a rookie on the PGA Tour and still a year away from marrying wife Ellie.

• Rory McIlroy was a teenager, a pro for less than a year and barely inside the top 200 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

• Jordan Spieth was still playing high-school baseball, and Justin Thomas couldn’t even reach a par 5 in two.

It’s not just the physical issues—his injuries haven’t been confined to the back, but also his neck, knee and Achilles and just about everything in between—that have taken its toll on Woods. There’s the mental grind he has also suffered through.

• The Thanksgiving night car crash and ensuing scandal in 2009.

• A contentious firing of longtime caddie Steve Williams, whom Woods was the best man at his wedding, in 2011.

• The debacle surrounding the two-stroke penalty Woods took at the 2013 Masters.

• A controversial drop later that year at the Players and oscill-gate at the BMW Championship.

• The 2015 split from girlfriend Lindsey Vonn.

Amazingly, Woods’ greatness endured. In 2013, Woods won five times on the PGA Tour and was voted Player of the Year by his peers.

And yet, that feels like forever ago. It has been a steep decline since. Multiple back surgeries, a case of the yips and age will do that, even to the best.

These days, just being able to play is a victory for Woods, and with that I’m reminded of the words of someone Woods grew up watching play against his beloved Oakland Raiders, former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway.

“I can’t do it physically anymore, and that’s really hard for me to say,” said Elway, an old 38 at the time, during his retirement speech in May 1999. “It’s hard to walk away. I can’t explain in words how much everyone has meant to me.”

Words can’t express what Woods has meant to golf (and probably vice versa). He might not be ready to walk away yet, but at this point it’s fair to ask the inevitable: Can Tiger not do it physically any more?

Once again there are more questions than answers.

The post What’s Next For Tiger Woods? It’s Something Even <br> He Can’t Really Answer appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Woods’ eagerly-anticipated comeback is on ice after just three rough rounds, the last of them a horror opening five-over 77 at Emirates Golf Club.

He cited back spasms for his subsequent WD from the Dubai and has the golfing world on tenterhooks ahead of his next week’s Gensis Open at Riviera Country Club, the next stop on his four-tournament, five week schedule which looks overly ambitious given his tentative gait and cautions swing on the Majlis.

Speaking on the sidelines of his Gary Player Invitational charity golf day at Saadiyat Beach on Monday, Player said he didn’t “know anybody who isn’t pulling for Tiger to do well. If Tiger does well, it obviously benefits us all and the entire game.”

But the nine-time major champion, 81-years-young, said coming back from a 15-month lay-off and trying to compete when he wasn’t tournament sharp was never going to be easy.

“To me he looks tentative, he doesn’t look as positive. His nerves don’t look as good as he has when he’s in his prime, but this is something when you lay off, it’s not easy,” said Player.

“It’s like if a man leaves his office for seven months or eight months or nine months, he just doesn’t come back [into business] and excel. It takes time.

“The answer to Tiger is just that, time. Time will tell but he’s got a monumental challenge, monumental. This is something only Tiger knows within.”

Golf Channel analyst Notah Begay III, Woods’ closest confidant (at least the one allowed to speak to the media) talked to Tiger within a few hours of his arrival back in the U.S. from Dubai.

“Talked a little bit about the Super Bowl and maybe some things that weren’t golf related, but at the end of the day there wasn’t any real, I guess, panic which I think is good,” Begay said about Woods’ his decision to withdraw an hour before his secojd round tee-time on a wind buffeted Majlis.

Asked if he believed Woods’ challenge was more physical or mental, Begay hinted that Tiger had found the early going tougher physically than expected.

“There’s a tremendous amount that the athlete doesn’t know what they are going to encounter [after significant injury]. The body is always going to push back, you’re older, you’re in your 40s, you’re trying to do things that you were doing when you were 30. And it’s just not equitable and so the athlete has to adjust,” Begay told The Golf Channel.

“And this is no different, nobody knew, not even Tiger knew, what the obstacles were going to be from a physical standpoint and I think hitting four fairways in the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open and having to play from some of the thickest rough I’ve seen in quite some time on the PGA Tour, that takes a toll.

“A long flight overseas, both ways, that takes a toll and all of the sudden you have to do a re-evaluation of okay, ‘what am I capable of, what are my thresholds’ and what are we going to do to make adjustments moving forward and I think that’s where we are at right now.” – Notah Begay II on Tiger Woods

Begay said he had witnessed first hand a “broad change” to Woods’ work out regime which was “dramatically different” to his pre injury days and was focused on stability.
“Of course everybody has got an opinion, but I defer to Tiger and his understanding of where he’s at.”

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