Tiger Woods a damp squib at Firestone - and beyond?
Before yesterday's first round at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational began, Tiger Woods refused to entertain the notion that he would need a wild-card pick to get into Corey Pavin's Ryder Cup side in October.
With his window of opportunity to that competition limited to just this tournament and next week's PGA Championship, we wonder if some enterprising journalist will now ask: "Now, Tiger - how about considering the very real possibility you won't automatically qualify?" It would be nice if Woods had the courtesy to issue a reasonable response, too.
At Firestone, the Akron, Ohio course where he has played with barely conceivable consistency in the past, winning on seven attempts and not once finishing outside of the top five, yesterday Woods floundered to four-over-par 74. The world's No. 1 golfer - for now - is in deep, deep trouble, with more than a place on the Ryder Cup team at stake.
Woods most recent round is only the most vivid example of his current funk, the 14-time major winner failing to win a tournament in seven previous starts this season.
At times this year the 34-year-old has shown enough flashes of his past ability, notably at the US Open and the Masters, to encourage his fans that a return to full strength is just around the corner. But yesterday, at the scene of Woods' most prolific victories, the golfer looked a shabby doppelganger of the man who has had this tournament in his pocket in previous years.
Just a bad day at the office? All of us are entitled to them from time to time, but Woods is making a distressing habit of such sloppy showings. In fairness, the golfer demonstrated some rare good grace yesterday, jokingly pumping his fist when he putted a birdie on the 17th before bowing to the gallery. It's good to know Woods has a sense of humour; the signs are he's going to need one.
As he departed the course after a round that ranks as his worst ever recorded at the course, one spectator offered a particularly brutal appraisal, yelling: "You're washed up Tiger. Give it up." Could such an assessment really be accurate? Certainly, the golfer's 270-week reign at the top of the world rankings is at serious risk, with Phil Mickelson tied for second place and capable of ousting Woods from the top spot this week.
Woods refused to give a post-game interview directly after his round ended, but speaking later to reporters the player admitted, with something approaching understatement: "I did not execute the shots that I wanted to execute, didn't shape the ball the way I wanted to shape it, and certainly did not putt well."
But it's not just a bad round that should be tormenting Woods; it's more a particularly unpalatable question, if he can't win, or at least compete here, where can he succeed?
Speaking purely as a golf fan, Woods' decline, if permanent, is a dismaying occurrence.Whatever the man's shameful misdemeanours and aloof demeanour, he was something special to behold on the course; on occasion it can be necessary to separate art from the artist, and Woods' former art remains astonishing, sometimes exquisite.
If word of Woods' admittedly contemptible behaviour had never leaked out into the public domain, the player would surely have broken Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors, and would have gone down in history as golf's greatest. But his game has been irrefutably, perhaps irrevocably damaged by the blows to his reputation.
It's entirely feasible that Woods the phenomenon is gone forever, but even if the barrel-scraping performance of Thursday is his nadir, and Woods can bounce back to continue as a competent, journey-man style golfer - would he want to? How long does Woods plod on as a pale shadow of his former glory, somehow both burnt out and fading away?
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