Tiger Woods returns after a neck injury to the PGA Tour at Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament Thursday. Familiarity with the course and four previous victories there provide at least some basis for optimism.
Tiger Woods, left, and Steve Stricker had one last day of carefree golf on Wednesday as they participated in a celebrity skins game at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Woods will play just his 10th competitive round on the tour when he tees off Thursday at the Memorial Tournament.
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DUBLIN, Ohio -- Wounded in more than reputation this time, Tiger Woods comes to the Memorial Tournament Thursday as the defending champion.
He doesn't sound like a player ready to contend or defend, because he has played only nine full rounds of tournament golf this season. He has no base of positive experiences on which to rely, other than familiarity with the Muirfield Village course and a personal history that includes four victories on it.
Asked if missing the cut at Quail Hollow in May after a second-round 79 was the low point, Woods said, "No, there have been a lot more low moments than that."
A neck injury caused Woods to withdraw from The Players Championship the week after Quail Hollow. He said it wasn't related to the Thanksgiving night car wreck, in which he hit a fire hydrant and a tree, and then watched a wrecker drag the esteem in which the world held him away on a hook.
"It wasn't one moment, it was a cumulative," Woods said of the stiff neck. He hit too many balls after taking time off as the sex scandal involving him erupted.
Woods didn't have to elaborate when he answered the question of whether missing a cut earlier at Quail Hollow was the low point of the season. “No, there have been a lot more low moments than that,” he said.Woods said he was already struggling with physical ailments as early as this year's Masters. He tied for fourth place, as Phil Mickelson, the talented rival who once was engulfed by his shadow, not only won, but ratified his place in the court of public opinion as the anti-Tiger.
It was not simply the limited range of motion in Woods' neck that cut short his first return to the PGA Tour. He called the searing headaches that flared even before the Masters "just unreal at times." Those are gone now.
But much of what Woods was is gone too, the wreckage still smoldering in his rear-view mirror.
Divorce from his wife, Elin, is widely held to be a matter of when, not if. Under the right set of circumstances, Mickelson, with a victory here while Woods is fifth or lower, would become the top-ranked player in the world. Woods has ruled that roost since 2005.
Despite 40 Tour victories and four majors, Mickelson has never led the money list, never been player of the year, never won the FedEx Cup in the PGA Tour's "playoff" season, never won the Vardon Trophy for stroke average, never been No. 1 in the world.
That all used to belong to Woods. But he did not win a major last year for the first time since 2004. He failed to hold a third-round lead in a major (in the PGA Championship) for the first time ever.
Sam Snead's record of 82 PGA Tour victories (Woods has 71) and Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors (Woods has 14) no longer seem so sure to be broken.
Tiger is only 34, but he seems to have been around forever. The medical problems that began in a left knee that withstood the torque of his savage swing went on to include a tear in his Achilles tendon and the neck injury. He has never been very candid about his injuries, most famously when he stumped around Torrey Pines on one leg to win the U.S. Open in a 19-hole playoff in 2008. Asked why the secrecy, he said, coldly, "You don't need to know."
Golf is a big hitter's game now, so even though he has lost swing speed with age, he uses one of those drivers that let him just nuke the ball 20 or 30 yards father than in his past.
"But that also brings in more trouble," he said. "The game has changed so much that you just have to hit the ball out there. You can't play golf courses laying back because guys are just too aggressive. For instance, Angel [Cabrera, former Masters and U.S. Open champion]. He played every week, driver everywhere. When he gets hot, you can't beat him."
That was Tiger in his glory. At his best, everybody else was playing for second.
That held for when his late father, Earl, was his swing coach and when Butch Harmon was his swing coach and when Hank Haney was his swing coach. Haney and Woods parted ways because of the sex scandal that grew more sordid almost hourly.
"I understand it," said Woods. "I mean, there's a lot going on, as we have seen."
He is his own swing coach now, using videotape to deconstruct the swing that earned him the applause of millions and the adulation of the world.
Maybe it is like watching an old highlight reel now.
Maybe it also recalls memories that can still be revived and a reputation that can still be repaired, if not fully resurrected.