Mortality reality

 He looks old now, suddenly. There are bags under the eyes that weren't there yesterday, or so an observer could swear. The features are both puffy and drawn at once. You can see  pain his face that was never before evident.

Or so an observer could swear.

Tiger Woods limped around Southern Hills this weekend like a 46-year-old going on 66, mortal in a way we're not used to seeing in our athletic gods. The leg he shredded in a reckless car accident 15 months ago was clearly hurting him. The awe we once reserved for the way he could turn a golf course inside-out and send opponents into cringe mode with one icy stare became something else entirely.

Now everyone was just awed he could make the cut in the PGA Championship.

"He's the ultimate pro," said Rory McIlroy, his first-round playing partner, on Friday. "Looking at him yesterday, if that would have been me I would have been considering pulling out and just going home, but Tiger is different and he's proved he's different. It was just a monumental effort."

And, ultimately, one not one even an immortal could sustain. Saturday came, and with it wind and temperatures in the 50s, and it all became too much. Tiger labored through 18 holes that were excruciating simply to watch, and when he signed his card for a 9-over 79, his tournament was over. 

As McIlroy put it 24 hours earlier, he pulled out and went home.

And so everybody's human after all, and surprise, surprise. And now you wonder if that human part of Tiger Woods lured him into playing the PGA after he went the distance at the Masters last month. You do something a lot of people thought was impossible -- especially if you've done the impossible so many times across the years -- you start thinking you can do it every time out.

But no one can. Not even Tiger Woods.

And so now he's apparently reconsidering playing the U.S. Open, which would not seem prudent at this point. He's said all along he's definitely going to play the British Open in July, and if he's going to do that he'd be wise to skip the U.S. Open. 

Even immortals must concede to mortality in the end. The latter is undefeated in these matters, after all.

But watching it  win again is a hard thing. We want to see Tiger Woods astonish us again with his shotmaking; now we'll just settle for watching him swing a golf club, and occasionally give us flashes of what he once was.

Old, suddenly. Damn. How did that happen?