The question resembled something you’d ask Evel Knievel as he lay entombed in various stookies. “The body has 206 bones, so do you know each one of them now?,” said a golf reporter to Tiger Woods. “No, but I know the ones that hurt,” responded Woods with a smile. Or was it a grimace?
The breaks and fractures Woods suffered in that frightful car accident back in 2021 have been well-documented. There are no bones cracking with his latest ailment but a debilitating dose of plantar fasciitis – an extremely sair fit to you and I – is a consequence of all the other sair bits that have ravaged his ailing frame in recent years.
This week’s Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas was supposed to be the tentative start of yet another Woods comeback but his late withdrawal from the event he hosts was a sobering reminder of his fragility. “I can hit the ball, but I can’t walk,” he lamented with the glum countenance of Les Dawson opening a disappointing bank statement.
We’ve all watched a defiant, determined Woods hirple and hobble his way through the pain barrier over the past year as he played all four rounds at a heroic Masters, withdrew after three at the US PGA then made an emotional early exit from The Open at St Andrews. The drive to keep putting himself through the wringer remains unwavering. “Well, I love competing,” was the 46-year-old’s simple answer to being asked why he keeps doing it. “I love the sport. I’ve been playing it all my life. I’ve been a pro for more than half my life. It’s just unfortunate I’m not able to do the things that I feel mentally I can do. The body just kind of rejects it.”
Rather like Tiger’s body, the men’s game at the highest level has been left nursing some painful wounds in 2022 as the civil war between the established tours and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf breakaway series roars on. Golf in the upper echelons is now so fractured, it should just about be wreathed in a plaster cast.
With the battleground set to move to the court rooms, there appears little hope of a truce, particularly with the combative LIV Golf supremo, Greg Norman, fixing the metaphorical bayonets and girding his loins for a fight to the death.
Rory McIlroy declared recently that Norman should quit in order for the warring factions to come together and negotiate some kind of peace deal. Woods echoed those sentiments. “Greg has to go,” declared the 15-times major champion.
As for any hopes of LIV and the status quo co-existing? Well, Woods was equally as forthright. “Not right now, not with their leadership, not with Greg there and his animosity towards the tour itself,” he added. “I don’t see that happening.
“As Rory said, I think Greg’s got to leave and then we can eventually, hopefully, have a stay between the two lawsuits and figure something out. But why would you change anything if you’ve got a lawsuit against you? They sued us first. I see that there’s an opportunity out there if both organisations put a stay on their litigation but that’s the problem, they’ve got to put a stay on it.
“I think it has to start with leadership on their side. Understanding that what is happening right now is not the best fit or future for the whole game of golf. Now, what is the best way for our game to grow? It’s not this way.
“You need to have the two bodies come together. If one side has so much animosity, someone trying to destroy our tour, then how do you work with that?”
It’s been a year of tumult and Woods remains pretty dismissive of the players who have jumped on the LIV Golf gravy train, saying they have shown “disrespect” and “disregard” to the PGA Tour while calling certain actions “tasteless”. This war of attrition will churn on. “They [LIV Golf] have spent probably close to $2 billion this year,” Woods said. “Who’s to say they can’t spend $4billion or
$5billion next year? It’s an endless pit of money. But that doesn’t necessarily create legacies. You want to compare yourself to [Ben] Hogan, you want to compare yourself to [Sam] Snead, you want to compare yourself to [Jack] Nicklaus. You can’t do that over there.”
