Deactivated Glute Blues

Cue the bluesy guitar soundtrack.... don't you just hate when your glutes won't activate?

Is it just me, or is the hyper-analytic language behind which Tiger hides becoming increasingly detached from reality?  His use of language has always been idiosyncratic, seemingly designed more to obscure than illuminate, but lately it seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Shack helpfully posts a complete transcript of his comments after yesterday's WD:

Q. When did the back start acting up?

TIGER WOODS: I guess between those two suspension. When we had that break. It just

never loosened back up again. And when we went back out, it just got progressively tighter.

Q. Did you consider not playing?

TIGER WOODS: What's that?

Q. Did you consider not playing?

TIGER WOODS: No.

Q. How frustrating is this for you, considering everything that you've been through with your back?

TIGER WOODS: It's frustrating that it started shutting down like that. I was ready to go. I had a good warm-up session the first time around. Then we stood out here and I got cold, and everything started deactivating again. And it's frustrating that I just can't stay activated. That's just kind of the way it is.

Q. Is this new for you since your comeback?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, very. This is -- usually don't have to wait like this. When I'm at home practicing I keep going, keep going, this is different.

Q. Same pain or a different pain?

TIGER WOODS: It's just my glutes are shutting off. Then they don't activate and then, hence, it goes into my lower back. So, I tried to activate my glutes as best I could, in between, but it just they never stayed activated.

Q. When did you first feel it?

TIGER WOODS: Whenever we were standing there on the putting green to see if we were going to go play or not. And I tried to activate it before we went back out, but it just never did.

I'm not a physical therapist nor do I play one on television, but does this make any sense?  We certainly understand that starting and stopping is going to take a toll on an older body, but doesn't he know how to properly warm up his body?  

We'll lean heavily on our favorite blogger this morning, as I'm having a low-energy morning.  Shack gives us all sorts of quotes from the Golf Channel personnel, first from the broadcast team:

Nick Faldo – “He has got to find a way to swing a golf club – especially the driver –

where the spine is not putting so much tension and torque onto it. That is his absolute must.”

Nick Faldo – “If you have physical issues, you have got to go through the warm-up process every single time. If he didn’t start again and hit the reset button and go through everything, it shows you how fragile he is. It indicates that he doesn't have that residual strength right now if something like that can happen.”

And then to the stodio folks, and I know you'll be shocked, shocked I say, to hear that Brandel Chamblee has strong opinions on the subject:

Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) – “It’s one thing to have surgery to fix a problem, but it’s quite another if you don’t take care of what’s causing the problem… [Staying taller] is exactly what he needs to do, and that will eliminate this consistent and recurring back issue. But I just don’t see him doing it.” 

Brandel Chamblee - “From now until he changes his golf swing, he’s going to continue to have back pain… When you watched him in 2008 [when he had knee issues], he didn’t bend over as much at address. His shoulder plane wasn’t as steep in his backswing… When you do that, you release your right side – you’re not impinging it. He’s impinging his right side now because of his golf swing. And it’s not going to go away, not as long as he’s doing this.”

I'm not a swing guru nor do I play one on television, so it beats me whether Brandel is correct here, though it should noted that he's been beating this drum consistently for some time and the injuries keep recurring, though correlation is not necessarily causation...

We'll briefly cover some thoughts from those that opine on such urgent matters.  Alex Miceli wonders when we'll stop concerning ourselves with Tiger:

Since returning from back surgery to play the Quicken Loans National last June, Woods

has played in 17 rounds. His scoring average during that stretch is 73.24, more than a half-shot worse than the worst-scoring Tour player of 2014, Derek Ernst, who ranked 177th at 72.593. 

Not including his 12-hole drive-by in Thursday at Torrey Pines, Woods has played 306 holes since returning from back surgery: 2 eagles, 53 birdies, 181 pars, 54 bogeys, 12 double bogeys and 4 triple bogeys. That's 33 over during the stretch.

No time soon is my guess.  The greatest player of our generation unable to break 80 is the proverbial train wreck from which we are unable to avert our gaze.

How about a special wingman award for Billy Horschel for picking up Tiger's tees and pulling his ball out of the cup.  Here's what Billy had to say:

Horschel said that Woods has shown signs of progress with his swing, notwithstanding his scoring and a host of loose shots. 

“I have a golfer’s eye. I’ve seen what his swing has become. I think it’s a lot better. But he couldn’t swing the way he wanted to. I saw at his event [the Hero World Challenge in December] on Saturday and he was deadly sick and he played really well, so I knew he wasn’t that far off. I still think he’s not that far off. He just needs more reps.”

Tiger seems overly focused on distance to me, but even with the back issue yesterday he seemed to be plenty long as compared to Billy and Rickie. 

And who knew that Steve DiMeglio was a birther:

His birth certificate reveals he's 39, but his body language makes it look like it's going on 60. Last week he shot his worst score as a pro – 82 – and missed the cut in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, marking the first time in his career he missed consecutive cuts.

Come to think of it, have we ever seen the long-form birth certificate?

We;ll go out with Hank Gola in the Daily News asking the inevitable question:

It’s no longer off-base to ask whether Tiger Woods is done for good.

You can't blame a guy, they've got papers to sell.  But perhaps a reminder that he won five times as recently as 2013 is in order...  but whether he can stay healthy enough is certainly a fair question.