Midweek Musings - Tiger Edition

Let's get the obligatory Tiger bit out of the way, shall we?  

The delightfully-named Jay Coffin listened to Tiger's presser so we didn't have to and distilled it down to some manageable excerpts:

On Tuesday, Woods explained the reasons for not playing that event, and the reasons why his game is now in good enough shape to take on 17 of the best players in the world. 

“One, the Ryder Cup helped a lot in the sense that I got a chance to be out there with the guys and see it and feel it and experience it,” he said. “Two, it hurt me by not being able to practice for a week.”

Yeah, that's a pretty loose definition of "reasons" my friend....and, as Shack notes, the Friday confirmation was after the Ryder Cup.  But please, do go on:

Woods said that he could’ve played Safeway with limited go-to shots in his arsenal but it wasn’t worth the risk to do that on a golf course he hasn’t played since his college days, 20 years ago.

Wowser!  Jordan Spieth shows up late Monday night in his Grand Slam attempt, but Tiger is worried about the subtleties of Silverado for his return in the Safeway?  I get that he's Tiger Woods and doesn't want to stink up the joint in public (or is it in front of Phil?), but it's a head-scratcher....

 But wait, there's more:

“As hard as it was on me to take it off and pull out of the event, it was a smart thing to do even though as a competitive athlete it killed me,” Woods said. “But if I’ve waited at the time, what, 13 months, what’s another couple more months? So let’s be a little patient, a little easier on myself, a little smarter and let’s come back when things are a little more together.”

Oh, how you've suffered, poor thing!  Rather than spewing more saliva on my monitor, I'll let Shack handle that pathos:

So he wasn't ready. We all would have understood. 

Why not just admit that it was a blunder, apologize for entering on a Friday before withdrawing on Monday after a bad weekend, and beg for the forgiveness of those who planned on attending to see you?

I'd just add that a commitment to playing there next year might also go a long way....  Because, you know, Johnny has a long memory and a microphone.

I don't know how you folks react, but I find myself not especially liking the man and his supreme self-absorption.  And this at a tie when he's making a concerted effort to more approachable, and his game more "vulnerable".

Other folks have different takes for sure:

Professional golf is in a great place, with exciting and charismatic young talent at the top

of the world rankings and leaderboards. It doesn’t necessarily need Tiger Woods to come back.

But how special would it be to have Tiger, with his 79 career PGA Tour wins and 14 major titles, return to relevance? It would make for a fantastic final chapter: the greatest golfer of his generation, now in his 40′s, going toe-to-toe with a group of young guns who grew up idolizing him, but aren’t intimidated by the transcendent player he once was.

That's why it's so aggravating.... The comeback should be all upside and no downside.  Is it his antipathy to the press?  Writing in The Scotsman, Martin Dempster makes a plea to give peace Tiger a chance:

Like it or not, it’s exciting for golf that Woods is about to be back playing. With all due respect to Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, they don’t come close to Tiger when it comes to generating interest, especially in the United States. Every shot will be scrutinised more than ever this week, but that, I’m afraid, comes with the territory when you are Tiger Woods. Let’s not be daft here, though, and expect too much. Give the guy a chance.

Martin, the guy not giving Tiger a chance is.....named Tiger.  OK, actually Eldrick, but you take my point.  If you look back at the commentary leading up to the Safeway, expectations were quite reasonable.  Folks were hoping to see a Tiger that was healthy and able to swing the club freely and with Tour speed (or something in that neighborhood).  No one expected him to have "all the shots", the end-game was understood to be 2017, perhaps something in the mid-April time-frame....

Lastly, for shear brilliance, we doff our proverbial cap to Ari Marcus, who introduces us to Tiger Bingo:

I think you'd want to free up a space for "glutes", "activation" and especially "gym", but we salute you Ari Marcus, whoever you might be.