‘At Pinehurst he didn’t seem to enjoy a single stroke and you think, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ He comes to Troon and he won’t enjoy it there either. There’s a time for every sportsman to say goodbye but it’s very difficult to tell Tiger it’s time to go. Obviously he still feels he can win. We’re more realistic.’ Colin Montgomerie, July 2024
I followed Tiger Woods for a couple of holes on Friday and it is a peculiar relationship he shares these days with the game he redefined. Love, he would say a couple of hours later, but it was hard to understand what he meant on the golf course at Troon.
There was a lot of support from the galleries, because that’s a fact. We would say the same about other golfers. They idolize him, they crave and fight for his approval, and he made them all richer. He still does.
But Woods’ love for golf? His golf? That’s different, of course. It’s a dance of jaded acquaintances now, whatever he says to our faces. His golf mistreats him. It mocks him. And he scowls back and demands too much, so they go round and round, arguing and criticizing, this pair of strangers who were once so in love.
I realized all this on the 9th hole of his second round and had that sad feeling as he walked slowly along the shore toward the 15th tee, 13 over par in the tournament by then. He had the look we are so familiar with: eyes swollen and fixed on the ground, jaw clenched, shoulders hunched, exhausted, drained by some realities.
Tiger Woods missed the cut at The Open and cut a forlorn figure at Royal Troon
Before the tournament, Colin Montgomerie suggested that Woods should retire
Montgomerie was telling the truth when he gave his verdict on Woods’ game
A minute earlier, he had missed a three-footer on the 14th hole, so he was in no mood for the outstretched hands of children. He just wanted to grab the driver with his glove, and when he did, he stared at the rough terrain of a nasty 500-yard hole and then cut deep into the fescue on the right. Woods sighed and began that damned walk again, shaking his head and stepping with that little limp.
Love? Not there. Not right then. Take him to the airport and let your agent take care of the rest.
But what is love like for Tiger Woods? It’s a question with many nuances, so we’ll stick to the sport. Is it the struggle for small gains? Is it the fear of the alternative, of the breakup and the silence that comes after?
Or is it the fleeting satisfaction of knowing, as we all know, that one good shot can make this maddening game feel better for a while? Is that where he is now, at 48 and almost 70, and is that why, for a brief moment, he allowed himself a slight smile as he pulled his second shot out of the abyss, up into the breeze and back down into the mounds that rolled his ball to within ten feet of the hole?
What a shot! What a roar! What magic! And there’s no magic in golf like Tiger’s. And we all want to see them figure this out.
But they won’t, and only one man in the world believes they can. That’s the same man who then missed the birdie putt and walked to the 16th hole, passing the outstretched hands again and again on his way to missing another important cut by a mile. Love moves in mysterious ways, truly.
The golf legend still draws crowds, but his mind and body are no longer up to par
Naturally, I was thinking of Colin Montgomerie during all this. That was why I was there, walking in Woods’ footsteps three days after the jokes had circulated. A murder had taken place in the media tent. A murder. When the vacuum cleaners were turned on on Tuesday night, we laughed that they were picking up bits of Monty.
Woods had done a good job with it, just as he had at St Andrews in 2005. That was a four-shot procession to his second of three Open titles; what happened on Tuesday was a single bullet between the eyes.
Montgomerie had spoken for almost everyone in the game in questioning why Woods does this, and yet he had also committed the cardinal sin in doing so.
“Well, as a former (Open) champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60,” Woods had said when asked about Montgomerie’s comments. “Colin is not. He’s not a former champion, so he’s not exempt. So he doesn’t get to make that decision. I do.”
With some pressure on, Woods had more to say: “When I get to his age, I’ll still be able to make that decision, whereas he won’t. I’ll play as much as I can and I feel like I can still win the event.”
It was an excellent text, but also cruel, unnecessary and, in the context of the last nine words, delusional.
Just like in golf, there were multiple routes to the hole and he decided to belittle someone for revealing the sport’s biggest secret. Montgomerie had told the truth and it goes without saying that several truths can be true at once.
The American still has great reserves of grit, but that is not enough for him to win at the highest level.
Woods’ body is in all kinds of trouble after multiple surgeries and he’s playing through pain.
When Woods steps out onto a golf course these days, I don’t see a contender. But I see grit. I see a tenacious spirit and I see the soul of a champion whose body can no longer play ball. I see a man who has completed only 32 competitive rounds since that car accident in 2021 and has shot in the 60s only three times and on 10 occasions has shot 77 or lower, but he is still chasing a dream. I see a man who has made no cuts in the past three majors and who outsmarted the storms of Augusta to survive until the Masters weekend and, my God, that was incredible.
Above all, I see a man who has no chance of winning another tournament, but I see dignity in abundance in how he keeps trying.
But I didn’t see much dignity in what he said about Montgomerie, who had been right in almost all his comments. Woods is not realistic in thinking he can win and he doesn’t seem to be enjoying the realization that he was, after all, mortal.
I hope Woods keeps his spirits up a little longer, because nobody brings electricity to a windy course like he does. But it might also be worth noting that he didn’t get into the U.S. Open at Pinehurst last month on a champion’s exemption. He got there by special invitation. They rewrote their rules for him.
There is dignity in his extreme efforts, but not much of that in his response to Montgomerie.
Because that’s where he is right now: a ceremonial golfer in every sense of the word, beyond his own. I’ll continue to enjoy those ceremonies when they happen, just as he’ll continue to grimace to the end, finding an unusual kind of love in the suffering as he does so.
I wish him luck, but it would be a terrible shame if, in this final act of his career, he reserved his most accurate shots for killing those who dare to state the obvious.
Howe is England’s best option
The best of us against the best of you. It is the sole purpose of international sport and I hope it is a principle the FA will respect as they look to fill the gaping void left by Gareth Southgate.
Judging by Eddie Howe’s blatant statements against his employers at Newcastle United this week, they have an Englishman who is desperate for the job. He would also be the best option.
Eddie Howe is the leading candidate to succeed Gareth Southgate as England manager
The end of the Greenwood saga
Manchester United have managed to get £26.6m out of a toxic asset like Mason Greenwood.
This shows, secondly, that no stain penetrates too deeply into the social fabric of football and that Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s fortunes may be changing.