Granted, Tiger Woods could retire his clubs in the attic today, and he will have done more to advance his sport and put money in his peers’ pastel pockets than anyone else since the hole was invented.
This does not mean that we are not allowed to feel a little disappointed in him in the past few weeks. After all, a life as big as hers has high expectations.
Swinging painlessly during a well-known charity game on May 24 and spotting Father’s Day weekend while enjoying a trip with his son to the Frederica Golf Club on St. Simons Island, Woods appears to be quite fit. And, however, he was absent as fans during the restart of the PGA Tour. Woods has barely been a sigh in the national conversation about, well, pretty much everything lately, from social justice to the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Lately golf has been this green island with nothing but murky water, tall grass, snakes and off-the-pitch stakes all around. The PGA Tour did the tough and complicated game work through a pandemic and did it all without the massive presence of Woods, the only player who could have elevated golf on an empty field on a show level.
The top four players in the world have faced the drawbacks and associated risks by playing in all three first events since it was all closed. And the n. 5, Brooks Koepka, would have played in all of them too, if he hadn’t retired last week after his caddy tested positive for coronavirus.
Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas have brought the parade back to competitive golf. And woods? Not as much as a postcard. He entered into bunkering – as is his right, let us remember – while others endured the weight of the restart.
None of the top five were on the pitch this week in Michigan. Rahm, Thomas and even Koepka will return next week for the first of two consecutive events at Muirfield Village in Ohio. As well as Phil Mickelson (his third reboot event) and Jordan Spieth (his fourth). But not even Woods next week.
Not having Woods in Fort Worth at the first event – a great time for golf and sport in America – was like the E Street Band that hit the road again without Springsteen. His sport needed Woods. His fans could certainly have used a push. It would have been nice if, due to his mere presence, Woods had approved the Tour’s decision to return, that’s all.
