This has to be the end for Tiger Woods, right? There’s no light at the end of this tunnel, no room for optimism, no reason to talk about him and the golf majors in anything but past tense … right?
Wrong.
True, he's running out of factors in his favor. This latest sign that the Tiger we knew is never coming back, it’s pretty grim. Not winning majors in an entire year is one thing. Missing cuts in majors is another. Missing a major or two each year, not good.
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Missing all of them in one year for the first time ever, though, that feels like rock bottom.
And doing it not only after multiple surgeries but on the most vulnerable area for an athlete — and doing it when he’s 40 years old — where’s the optimism?
It’s closer than many realize.
In fact, it showed itself just a week ago. That’s when Phil Mickelson went toe-to-toe for the British Open crown before Henrik Stenson held him off.
Mickelson is 46.
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Had he won, he would have been the fourth golfer that age or older to win a major. And he would have won one for the second time in four years — he memorably came from behind to win the 2013 British, too, when he was 43.
Mickelson’s win that year made it three straight years that a golfer over 40 had won a major, following Ernie Els in the British in 2012 and Darren Clarke in, again, the British, in 2011.
In all, it has happened six times just during Tiger’s run of major wins, starting in 1997. Four of those have been since the turn of the century.
So, no, you don’t have to go back to Jack Nicklaus, or Ben Hogan, or Old Tom Morris, to find a precedent for what Tiger would be trying, again, to do starting next year. He turns 41 at the end of this year.
It feels like pure fantasy and complete delusion to talk about it, of course. That’s what happens when the gleam comes off a career the way it did off his. It really has felt like longer than eight years since the playoff win in the 2008 U.S. Open.
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Woods falling apart on Saturday and Sunday at a major feels like the glory days compared to now, when he’s left declaring himself out weeks in advance.
It’s hard to believe that in that very same 2013 British, Tiger was in the hunt until the final day (he was one of the bunch that Mickelson passed on Sunday). He was PGA Player of the Year that year. That was at least three surgeries (or procedures) ago.
Overall, there’s no way to sugarcoat this year.
But it’s still way too early to declare him finished forever, even finished with winning majors. Yes, it’s got to be one step at a time, so no more talk about catching Nicklaus’s 18 majors, not that anyone has mentioned that lately.
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In this game, 41 is young, even with a bad back. Watch out if that back heals, if he learns his lesson from when he admitted he rushed back.
Everybody watch out, including Mickelson, of all players, who has served up a couple of recent examples why it’s too early to count his career nemesis out.