Exit strategy

 Slowly, now, the phenom slips away from us. Instead of blazing across the firmament, he hobbles. Instead of high noon, you see sunset in every pained step.

Once upon a time Tiger Woods was the greatest golfer of his generation, maybe of any generation, and he carried his sport to an extent perhaps no athlete ever has. When Tiger played, America watched golf. When he for whatever reason didn't or couldn't, America watched something else. It was that simple a thing.

But now?

Now he's 48, his body and his game ruined by infirmities both self-inflicted and not so, and it's shocking sometimes to watch him. He has become an old man, it seems, between one swing of the club and the next. 

This week he shot 4-over 74 and 3-over 73 at Pinehurst in the U.S. Open, and missed the cut just like he missed the cut at the PGA last month. The month before that, he finished 60th in the Masters, shooting 16-over after an ugly 82-77 weekend.

He's played just one other tournament this year, at Riviera Country Club. He withdrew after two rounds.

And so you can watch him now and say, "Why doesn't he just retire?", but if you do you miss the fact he pretty much already has. After he missed the cut at Pinehurst he said this might or might not have been his last U.S. Open, just as he said in April it might or might not have been his last Masters. His body dictates that now, his body and time.

Woods more than anyone seems to accept this, and with an equanimity that seems odd considering how pitilessly he used to hunt down and crush all pretenders. When he slipped on his Sunday red with another major in his sights, it was almost always game over. Everyone else went into what can only be described as Tiger Cringe Mode.

Maybe that's why the galleries still follow him whenever he plays, even though he's just another P. Malnati or R. Mansell on the leaderboard these days. It's memory that draws them. It's nostalgia. And mostly it's a tribute, the way it was a tribute when Michael Jordan came to a town in his last years with the Washington Wizards, and the arena would jitter with camera flashes every time he touched the ball.

Why doesn't Tiger Woods just retire?

Look around. This is his retirement.