From world number one and two on the American Tour at the end of the 2013 season, to 25th and 218th in the respective rankings at the end of the 2014 season. From five wins and $8.5 million in earnings to a career-best 25th place finish, two withdrawals, two missed cuts and $108,000.
The year 2014 has obviously not been one of Tiger Woods’ best in the sporting aspect; quite the contrary.
Compared to his worst previous season, that of 2011, that year he played nine tournaments (in 2014 only seven) and finished in the PGA Tour ranking in 132nd place, compared to 218th now. Five years ago the truculent story of Tiger’s double life and adulteries came to the fore, which ended a few months later with his divorce from Swedish model Elin Nordengren and the Californian’s internment in a specialized clinic to try to curb his addiction to the sixth.
In 2011 the ligaments in his left knee, which he had operated on in 2002 and 2008, again caused him problems and forced him to withdraw from competition for some time.
After regaining his magic with the clubs and becoming world number one again in 2013 thanks to his five victories on the PGA Tour, it was in March 2014 when the alarm bells rang again when he announced that back pain would prevent him from playing one of his talismanic tournaments, the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He had won it eight times, and another victory would have set a PGA Tour record, as no one has ever won the same tournament nine times. At the end of that month, just before the Augusta Masters, Tiger underwent surgery to release a nerve that had been preventing him from performing at his best on the course for months.
In June he reappeared but was unable to make the cut, which he did, although he finished 69th, the following week at the British Open. His two subsequent attempts in August resulted in a withdrawal (World Golf Championship Bridgeston Invitational) and his fall in the cut (75-74) at the US PGA.
His last appearance of the year would take place four months later, in early December, at the Hero World Challenge in Florida. A very mediocre performance (he finished last, 26 strokes behind the winner -with vomiting on the course, including a bad drink of water- that Woods himself could not explain: “It’s surprising to hit the chips so badly, my short game was terrible, it’s one of those days when nothing comes out of it”. The good thing is that he had no back pain and that made him feel optimistic about his future: “To come out here and play without any pain is great progress, and also to be able to hit the ball as hard as I really want to”.
“I’ve made some progress,” Woods said. “I hadn’t played in four months and I don’t have any soreness, which is nice. To be able to give it my all on some of the drives like I’ve done this week really tells me that what I’m doing is the right thing for my body.”
The difference in this return to competition – his fifth in the last five years due to injury – is that Woods is working with Chris Como, his third swing coach in the last five years.
Tiger did not reveal when he will play his next tournament again, although it could be in mid-January in Hawaii. “It’s not going to be the Tournament of Champions,” Woods said with a chuckle.
Although he finished tied seventeenth in Florida (last in the standings: only eighteen played), this was his best result of the year, as the previous one, before undergoing back surgery, had been a twenty-fifth at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship.
The biggest surprise at the Hero World Challenge was undoubtedly his lousy short game, both in chips and on the green. Woods blamed it on the fact that he was in an adaptation phase and that he had made a mixture of his previous swing and the one he is trying to execute now. He missed eight chips, four of them on one hole.
“I’ve been through this situation before,” Woods said after his rounds of 77, 70, 69 and 72. “I’ve been injured and out of contention for a long time. I’ve had to work my way through it to get back again. Winning takes time. I went without competing for a while because of my Achilles heel, and in two years I won eight times. It’s a process to get back to that level. You have to work for it…and I have some time.” Although he didn’t quote him, he was most likely thinking about the next major, the Masters at Augusta in April.
He has three months to try to regain the good feelings and fearless precision play that have made him one of the greatest players, if not the greatest, of all time.
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