Tiger Woods very likely could miss the cut at Augusta today, which is maybe what he was trying to tell us this week. If his presser with the assembled media was not his valedictory speech to competitive golf, it was a spot-on imitation.
His shattered leg, Tiger said, is never going to be right again. Which is why he can't play a lot of tournaments anymore. And which is also why he's not sure how many more Masters he has left in him, because Augusta National is a lot more up-and-down than it appears on TV.
Then he went out yesterday and validated everything he said.
Shot a 2-over 74, Tiger did, and it hurt to watch him. He gimped around and gimped around and looked like nothing so much as a 47-year-old going on 68. At 2-over as the begins, he's a stroke adrift of the projected cut, tied for 53rd with the likes of Tom Hoge and Thomas Pieters and Sergio Garcia, himself a senior citizen at 43.
To make the cut, he'll need a better round than Thursday's, in what's expected to be much lousier weather. And even if he does, it's not like he's going to actually be a factor come Sunday.
The irony here is he seems a lot more at peace with this than those of us watching him.
Listen. It's hard to feel sorry for this wounded version of Tiger, seeing how it was his own damn fault he nearly lost his leg. Driving 80 mph on a twisty stretch of road more suited to 45 was a spectacularly stupid thing to do. Especially when you consider who was doing it.
And yet ...
And yet, watching him struggle will never not be painful, because memory keeps taking us back to what he was. And he'll never be that again.
Time will always be undefeated, especially when its wounds are self-inflicted. Doesn't mean we can't howl and shake our fists at it.
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