Sports News
No Time for Tiger Woods to be the Hero
He's shown his toughness, but now Woods must save his body.Tiger Woods cemented his macho credentials in a country-club game when he limped around Torrey Pines for 91 holes on a broken leg and a knee with a blown ACL. There’s no need any longer for shows of toughness. Now’s the time for smart decisions.
No one, including Tiger and his doctors, knows how many more rounds of golf or how many more miles of jogging are left in his left knee. It’s been repaired four times now, and Tiger has admitted that it’s been hurting for 10 or 12 years — essentially his entire professional career.
So you know he’ll accept some pain to get back into tournament mode, even if the pain is because the knee isn’t completely healed. He likes to say he’s not good at listening to doctors. He seems to take this as a point of honor, and in some cases it can be. But he’s talking about the rest of his career now. If he takes care of himself, it could be another dozen years or more. If he doesn’t, he could be back on the sidelines at any moment.
If there’s ever a time to listen to the doctors and be more conservative with his health than Ronald Reagan was with his politics, this is the time. There’s no need to become a rehab hero and do more than is demanded by the therapists. There’s no need to take to the highways and put in hundreds of pounding miles of running. If he wants cardiovascular fitness, he can swim or ride a bike. Same effect, less stress on the joints.
That’s one of the things I keep thinking of. Woods knew his left ACL was weak and would probably go some day. Yet he kept running on it, kept putting stress on it, kept acting as if he were some comic book hero who couldn't get hurt. And when he did get hurt, he ignored that fact and kept right on doing things that were going to hasten the ultimate breakdown.
That’s not courageous, it’s just dumb.
That’s why there is no need now to come back early. Not on a leg that’s been under the knife four times and is running a cartilage deficit.
Normally, I’d say it doesn’t matter what he does. It’s his knee and his career, and he has every right to do with both what he wants. If his career were to end today, I’m willing to take a risk and say he’ll be able to pay the rent for the rest of his life and keep gas in the yacht.
And if that meant he didn’t get the four more majors he needs to take away Jack Nicklaus’ title as the greatest golfer ever, that’s his problem. I’ll be sorry if he doesn’t get it, but I won’t lose any sleep over it unless he promises to lose some sleep over my continuing failure to win a Pulitzer.
But I’m going to be selfish here. I want Tiger to take the smart road not for him but for both his sport and the people whose lives are enriched by being privileged enough to see him work his wonders on the golf course.
I want to see him play another 10 years or more. I want to see him try to win one last major at the age of 46 like Jack did. I want to see him win a tournament when he’s on the bad side of 50. I want to see him win 25 majors, if such a thing is possible. I want to see him give the sport everything he has for as long as he possibly can.
And he can’t do that if he takes the hero route. There’s no future in it and no point in it, either. If he were a football player, I’d congratulate him on coming back too soon and trying to help his team win a Super Bowl. I’d say the same if he were playing any other team sport. Careers in those sports — especially football — are brutally short anyway. You may as well go out in a blaze of glory.
Woods has had his blaze of glory during those hellish five days and 91 holes at Torrey Pines on Father’s Day. He had it for most of the previous year when he played 12 tournaments without an ACL and won 9 of them. He had it for the decade he’s been playing on a partially flat tire.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t walk to the first tee if he’s not perfectly healthy. He’s human and he’s in his 30s. There are always going to be aches and pains. I’m just saying he shouldn’t start his comeback until the knee is as healed as it can get.
It’s for me, not him. The PGA Tour is not the same without him. I’ll still watch it because I love golf. But it won’t be as exciting. I can put up with it for six months or a year or however long it takes before he comes back. But when he does come back, I want to keep him around for as long as possible.
So be smart, Tiger. Give the knee the time it needs. We don’t need courage. We need you.
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