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The whole golf world was waiting for Tiger Woods\u2019 return to competition after sixteen months away from tournaments due to injuries. At last the spectacle would be back, the fans would be encouraged and the sponsors would be more inclined to invest a lot of dollars to make themselves visible in the major competitions. But, unfortunately, the illusion vanished soon, too soon. <\/p>\n
He opened his long-awaited comeback in December at the Hero World Challenge, where he finished fifteenth and signed a second round 65, missed the cut in his second appearance, at the Farmer Insurance in San Diego in late January, and in his third tournament, at the Dubai Desert Classic in early February, he withdrew after the first day, 77 strokes, again due to back problems. His doctors prescribed prolonged rest. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not what I expected, I\u2019m extremely disappointed,\u201d said Tiger, whose comeback will depend on his physical evolution and the outcome of the medical tests he may undergo.<\/p>\n
His participation in the first major of the season, the Masters, April 6-9, is practically ruled out.<\/p>\n
Tiger\u2019s sporting future is, unfortunately, not at all flattering, and this has been made clear by several of his colleagues, some more diplomatically than others. In the first case would be the legendary Gary Player, who, when asked about the chances of Tiger\u00a0 to win a major again, said:\u00a0 \u201cI hope he does, but I don\u2019t think so. I say that with respect; I don\u2019t think it will happen, although I hope I\u2019m wrong.\u201d Not at all diplomatic was Pat Perez, winner of two PGA Tour tournaments. \u201cThe bottom line is he knows he can\u2019t beat anybody,\u201d he said, referring to the former world number one\u2019s comeback. \u00a0 According to the American golfer of Mexican descent, Tiger has returned to the media limelight for commercial interests, to keep his name in the limelight and thus justify the large amounts he charges from the firms he represents. \u201cHe has to keep those issues relevant, but more importantly, he doesn\u2019t know he can\u2019t beat anyone,\u201d he argued. <\/p>\n
Regarding the possible non-appearance of his fellow Californian at the Masters, Perez said in an apocalyptic tone that \u201cif he\u2019s not at Augusta, it\u2019s over\u201d.<\/p>\n
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A quarter of a century in the American Circuit<\/strong><\/p>\n Those times are long gone, 25 years ago, when a very young Tiger jumped into the world golf limelight with his debut on the PGA Tour. It was February 2, 1992, when a slender 16-year-old stripling showed up at the Nissan Open in Los Angeles and signed his first round of 72 strokes in the best professional circuit in the world. Amateur Tiger became the youngest player to play in a PGA Tour tournament. On the second day he shot 75, not enough to make the cut at the Riviera Country Club, in a tournament won by Davis Love III. <\/p>\n The Tiger at the time, a lanky lad who weighed 63 kilos, 20 kilos less than today, had to ask the tournament\u2019s chief steward for permission to make his first round.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a life-changing moment,\u201d recalls Tiger 25 years later at a not exactly sweet time in his career, in which he has amassed 79 titles, including 14 majors, second only to Jack Nicklaus, who amassed 18.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great learning experience for me,\u201d acknowledges the former world number one. \u201cI realized I wasn\u2019t good, that I had a long way to go. At that level, I wasn\u2019t competitive. I was junior level, not professional, and the others were much better than me,\u201d he recalls. <\/p>\n That unforgettable experience, supervised at all times by his father, Earl Woods, was the prelude to what would come later and would eventually make young Tiger one of the greatest golfers of all time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The whole golf world was waiting for Tiger Woods\u2019 return to competition after sixteen months away from tournaments due to injuries. At last the spectacle would be back, the fans would be encouraged and the sponsors would be more inclined to invest a lot of dollars to make themselves visible in the major competitions. But, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}