Tiger Wood

So, apparently the man is human. Maybe he does bleed like the rest of us. Maybe, just maybe, Tiger Woods is no longer, well Tiger Woods.

The last calendar year has been surprisingly pedestrian for the golfer who, once upon a time, struck fear in the hearts of his opponents by his very presence.

Following what many called the greatest performance in golf history when Tiger captured the 2008 US Open by outlasting Rocco Mediate in dramatic fashion via a three hole playoff, it was revealed that Tiger had been playing with a torn left ACL. He had been playing for at least 10 months with a torn ligament in his left knee,  in addition to suffering a double stress fracture in his left tibia. Surgery was required, and a lengthy absence from the tour was imminent.

Tiger Wood picture

Even a novice golfer will acknowledge the wear and tear one suffers to their lead knee when swinging a golf club consistently. Add the violence with which Tiger swings his club (particularly his driver and fairway woods) and the Open performance becomes even more impressive. Only Tiger knows the kind of pain he played through to capture his 14th Major Championship.

“He beat the best golfers in the world on one leg”, observed PGA Tour veteran Kenny Perry.

He left to recover while on top of his game. The reigning king of the course. The lord of the links. The God of the greens. He was still, well, Tiger Woods.

Since then? Not so much.

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To be fair, Tiger has won five tournaments since his return. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The guy isn’t exactly average, or anything close to it.

But a closer look reveals some startling trends that we simply are not used to seeing from the one golfer who has become a global icon. Think Jordan. Think Ali. Think Babe Ruth. Tiger is on the short list of the professional athlete Mount Rushmore.

First, he lost to Tim Clark (who?) in the second round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, his first tournament after an 8-month layoff.

He finished 9th at the WGC-CA Championship, his first stroke-play tournament since the surgery.

Tiger is typically is at his best during major tournaments. His first chance to make his mark and re-establish his dominance was at The 2009 Masters. He finished sixth, four strokes behind eventual winner Ángel Cabrera. Good enough for most, but not for Tiger.

Then, he finished two strokes behind Sean O’Hair, and placed fourth overall at the Quail Hollow Championship. Fourth place isn’t bad, right? Well, not when your Tiger Woods. And certainly not when you’re Tiger Woods and you have the lead after 18 holes.

At The Players Championship, he played in the final grouping on Sunday, but finished eighth.

Then came the US Open at Long Island’s Beth Page Black, his second chance in ‘09 to capture his 15th major. At the tournament where Tiger made history a year ago (and has won three times in his career) he stumbled out of the gates and never seriously challenged, en route to a sixth place finish.

At the 138th Open Championship played at the Turnberry Resort, in Ayrshire, Scotland, the unthinkable happened. For only the second time in his illustrious career, Tiger missed the cut at a major championship.

The culmination of the Tiger descent into mortality occurred over the weekend at the Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota, where the PGA Championship was played. It was the final major tournament of 2009. The final chance for Tiger to be, well, Tiger.

Tiger

He came out of the gates with that old familiar look in his eyes, and the assumption was everyone else may as well just go home. This tournament was his and everyone else was playing for the runner-up paycheck.

For starters, Tiger shot a 5-under 67 to take the lead after the first round. He remained a top the leader board through the second and third rounds. He was rolling going into the final round, possessing a 2 stroke lead at 8-under.

Then, it happened.

At the 68th hole, Y.E. Yang, a little-known 37-year-old from South Korea who was in PGA Tour qualifying school nine months ago, roared past Tiger (pun intended) to take over the lead. Yang would eventually win the tournament by three strokes over Woods, and became the first Asian to win a major golf tournament.

14 times prior to Sunday, Tiger was the leader/co-leader after 54 holes of a major championship.

He was 14-0.

It was also the first time Tiger lost any tournament on American soil when leading by more than one shot heading into the final round.  Lastly, the loss also means Tiger will end the year without a major tournament title for the first time since 2004.

So Tiger remains stuck on 14 majors, four behind Jack Nicklaus, who continues to hold the ever elusive record of 18. At one point, it was a no-brainer that Tiger would catch Jack, and possibly finish with north of 20 majors.

Now? Nobody can be sure. Pound for pound, Tiger is still the world’s best. More often than not, it’s Tiger vs. the field. But if the coming years resemble his 2009, we will be asking ourselves “what could have been” when we look back on the career of who once was the transcendent golfer of our generation.