Tiger Woods Losing Ground Against The Toughest Opponent Of All

Golf holds its greatest champions in the highest level of esteem and you could see that last Friday as Tiger Woods walked the 18th hole of The Old Course.

He was on his way to missing the cut at the 150th Open Championship but it didn’t matter for the tens of thousands gathered.  The masses rose in unison and rendered a robust, standing ovation for the three-time Open Champion.

After shooting 78-73 to finish his 2022 season, it’s become painfully evident that Woods is battling an undefeated opponent — time.

Time has taken down the world’s greatest athletes in every era.  And Tiger looks more ceremonial than competitive these days as he battled constant pain to play in three of this year’s four major championships.

Tiger has pointed out more than once that casual observers have no idea what it takes for him to prepare to play 18 holes in competition.

His body will never be the same as it was before his horrible car wreck — he’s now got a lot of hardware in his leg and once you have hardware in your body — nothing is ever the same.

The talking heads claimed to be unsure of when Woods might play again, but the answer to that is pretty simple — he’ll play with son Charlie in the PNC Championship in November in Orlando.  After that, it’s a safe guess that he’ll play in his own Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in December.

After spending some quality time with Tiger at St. Andrews last week, Lee Trevino put it bluntly — “His biggest challenge is walking.”

That’s been evident since he defied the odds and showed up at The Masters this past April and made the 36-hole cut.  But he was spent and wasn’t a factor over the final 36-holes.  He showed up at Southern Hills but after making the cut, on the number, he was simply unable to answer the bell for an early Saturday tee time and chose with withdraw to focus on his return to St. Andrews.

The Old Course revealed a familiar theme with Woods’ game — his short game has totally deserted him.  And it was Woods’ short game and putting that took him to 82 wins and 15 major championships.

Tiger poo-pooed any notion of retirement when the European media questioned him about that possibility.  “No, no, no, no, no,” Woods repeated emphatically.

So it’s on into the fog of uncertainty for Tiger.

Time is not on his side.

And neither is his once prolific short game.

Cameron Champ Defends At 3M:

The PGA Tour regular season is down the final stretch and most of the big names are recovering from their time in Scotland, trying to freshen themselves for the FedEx playoff run.

This week’s 3M at the TPC Twin Cities has Cameron Champ defending his title.  J.T. Poston, Sahith Theegala and Cameron Tringale all played in the 150th Open Championship and will be in this week’s field.    Theegala finished tied for 34th, Tringale tied for 63nd while Poston missed the 36-hole cut.

Twenty-year-old South Korean Joohyung Kim tied for 47th at the Open Championship and has accepted special temporary membership on the PGA Tour.  He can accept unlimited sponsor’s exemptions.  The talented youngster has shown a lot of ability around the world this season.

Tony Finau is probably the biggest name in the field.  Last week’s winner at the Barracuda, Chez Reavie, is in the field.