Tiger Woods will be on hand this week for the Quicken Loans National, which benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.
However, as the tournament host announced recently, he won’t have a golf club in his hands.
The erstwhile No. 1 golfer in the world is trying to come back from three procedures on his ailing back, taking his time and listening to his doctors more than ever before at the age of 40.
Although he claims to be making progress, there is growing speculation that we might not see Woods on the golf course this year.
“The plan is to get well,” Woods said in a statement recently. “Whether that’s next week or a year from now, I don’t know. That’s the hard part, me telling you I don’t know. My doctors don’t know. I don’t know. … I have to keep progressing and getting stronger, which I am, and that’s the good part.
“I’m trying to get stronger, more pliable. I’m hitting the ball better. Everything about my game is coming around. Now it’s just a matter of being consistent with it. Not only at home with the boys at Medalist and trying to take their cash, but coming out here and doing it against the best players in the world is a completely different deal.”
Woods has not played in a tournament since he tied for 10th in the Wyndham Championship last August.
The last of Tiger’s 79 PGA Tour victories, three short of Sam Snead’s record, came in the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, capping a season in which he won five times.
His 14th and last major victory came in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he beat Rocco Mediate in a 19-hole playoff for the ages.
There was a time when almost everyone believed Woods would shatter both records, but it’s difficult to find anyone to say that these days, and some even doubt he will break Snead’s mark.
However, at least two people have been saying he can still achieve both.
“I’ve said I expect Tiger to break my record, but I said he’s still got to do it,” Nicklaus said a few months ago. “I’ve said that 100 times. And he still has to do it. Do I think his chances are as good now as they were before? No, of course not. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a chance.
“I don’t think he’s done. … I know his personality. I know his determination. I know his work ethic. … He’s just too good not to win. Now, whether he’ll win to the level he’s used to winning, I don’t know; that remains to be seen. He is just too good a talent not to win.”
Woods, who posted a list of Nicklaus’ achievements on his bedroom wall while growing up in Cypress, Calif., has never given up thinking that he could eventually hold both records.
If he can get and stay healthy, he believes he might have close to 10 good years remaining, but the records are on the back burner for now.
“It would be nice to end up at No. 1 on both lists,” said Woods, who in 2001 became the only player to hold all four modern major titles at the same time, what became known at the Tiger Slam. “I think (Nicklaus’) major championship record is certainly still attainable. … That’s a long way away and it’s going to take time to get to that point, but hopefully I can get back out there and play to that level.
” … I need to be able to go out there and play and recover each and every day, and until I get to the point where I feel comfortable doing that, then I’ll make that decision then. Everything about my game is coming around. Now it’s just a matter of being consistent with it.
“I am making progress, but I’m not yet ready for tournament competition.
People have written me off. I’m not fertilizer. As far as my golf, I’m progressing, I’m getting better. Just give me a little time.”
The clock is ticking and as the famous English proverb notes: “Time and tide wait for no man.”
Not even the great ones.
