Can Tiger rise again?

Is it legitimate to declare 'Tiger is toast', as so many are doing in America? Photo: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports

Is it legitimate to declare 'Tiger is toast', as so many are doing in America? Photo: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports

Published Mar 31, 2015

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One week to the Masters and it’s safe to say that never before in the tournament’s long and distinguished history have the eyes of the golfing world been trained at this late stage in the build-up on the game’s 104th ranked player.

Will Tiger Woods — yes, hard as it is to comprehend, he really has fallen that far — turn up to compete? The question that has hung in the air since he was last seen at a tournament in early February will surely be answered today.

Not that it really matters in terms of who will end up with the green jacket, of course. Ten years after he last won at Augusta, there’s no way that streak will be ending on this occasion, even if he does show up. It’s more than 12 months now since Tiger played so much as a decent tournament and not even the best golfer of the last 30 years can go straight from zero to a Master once more.

But what about the bigger picture? Is it legitimate to declare ‘Tiger is toast’, as so many are doing in America?

There is no disguising he’s beset with a multitude of problems. He is struggling in mind and body, with a clear case of the chipping yips now added to the long list of physical injuries that have contributed to his demise.

By the time he turns up at next year’s Masters he will be 40, and the list of players who have won the event past that milestone is not a long one.

Even so, we should be wary of passing final judgment just yet, and declaring this the ultimate example of sporting hubris.

Look at the stories of the five men who have completed the career grand slam — Tiger, lest we forget, has done it three times — and one of the things that binds them is their inestimable powers of recovery. Look at Jack Nicklaus, written off at the age of 46 yet still he claimed one final Masters in 1986 with a thrilling back-nine charge that spooked the life out of players such as Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros.

Most of all, look at Ben Hogan, who almost lost his life aged 37 following a car accident.

The doctors feared he would not walk again, only for Hogan to rise from his hospital bed and win six majors in the years that followed, including three in a row in 1953.

Yes, the odds are stacked heavily against Woods adding to his total of 14, but not so as to render the idea beyond the bounds of possibility.

So let’s hope for positive news today. He might not win, but it would be good to see the world No 104 at Augusta, launching the latest of his many comebacks. – Daily Mail

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