KEY POINTS:
It may not happen that Tiger Woods ever again feels the surge of conviction and physical well-being which led him to claim that winning the Grand Slam, all neatly parcelled up in one calendar year, is an ambition he can quite reasonably set himself.
Indeed, it could be
that yesterday's announcement that he will miss the rest of the season for reconstructive surgery on his deeply wounded left knee is more than anything a sombre warning that the human body, even one as fastidiously sculpted and maintained as the Tiger's, sometimes has an inclination to set its own limits on quite what can be achieved.
This is a shocking thought for anyone who finds the theatre of modern golf unimaginable without its most thrilling and profound actor. But then it does help to define further the meaning of his astonishing career and the stunning integrity of his performance on the cliffs of Torrey Pines earlier this week.
Because it is in the nature of the world we live in now, and the values that have accompanied instant celebrity within the touchlines and fairways of sport, that there was an inevitable whiff of scepticism about the degree of hardship Woods endured when he won the US Open, and his 14th major, on the first hole of sudden death after his 18 holes of play-off with the resilient veteran Rocco Mediate. Oh, yes, the Tiger suffered a little bit, but with the help of adrenaline and painkillers he was able to laugh his way profitably to the soothing hands of the world's most expensive healers.
We have a somewhat different picture now, however. The price of his third US Open has been revealed to be sickeningly high.
For the Tiger to go until the end of the season without the cold edge of tension that comes on the back nine of a significant golf tournament is rather like a hedonist being condemned to the cell of a monk. Woods will see this time without the rush of competition as the bleakest of sentences, at least compared with the rush of his most life-giving emotion, the heady realisation that another prize is at his mercy.
If he is to claim his destiny as the greatest golfer the world has ever known, if he is to march past the record mark of Jack Nicklaus's 18 titles with, say, a decade to augment a unique and unsurpassable place in his sport, he must undergo the most painstaking rehabilitation.
It could be that the task has been made just a little more onerous by the heroics which stretched over five days in Torrey Pines. Was he right to risk serious aggravation of his knee problem?
The Tiger has to set his US Open win against his absence from the Open and the USPGA tournaments and, no doubt least taxing to his spirit, the Ryder Cup. His impoverishment is also ours.
- Independent
