FTAGOD
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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Four days after Tiger Woods declared himself unfit to play more than nine holes at The Players Championship, he said he expected to be at the U.S. Open next month.
"Will do all I can to get there," he said on Twitter.
That only shows how far away he is from catching, much less passing, the 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus.
The question used to be whether Woods was going to win a major.
Now it's whether he'll even play.
Only he knows how badly his left knee and left Achilles are injured, and Woods rarely has been willing to offer more than the bare minimum about his health, if that much. He withdrew last year from The Players Championship with a neck injury he said had been bothering him for a month. He said he ruptured his right Achilles in December 2008, yet never mentioned it until 16 months later.
It's no longer his pursuit of Nicklaus that leads to speculation. It's his health, too.
Woods skipped one tournament (Quail Hollow) because he wanted to give a "minor injury" time to heal. He withdrew from the next one (Players Championship) without even getting to the 10th hole and with a nine-hole score of 42 that ranks among his worst.
The biggest change with Woods is the perception of him.
Had this happened five years ago, the focus would have been entirely on his injury, not the score on his card. Yet there was plenty of chatter among players last week that Woods might not have been so quick to leave had he not been 6-over par.
Opinions about whether he could catch Nicklaus used to be based on his form.
In an online survey for readers, Golf Digest asked if they thought he would break the record. This was after Woods won the Masters and U.S. Open in 2002, and 73 percent said "yes." Two years later, when Woods had gone eight majors without winning and started to work with Hank Haney, the magazine asked the same question, and 71 percent said "no."
"Will do all I can to get there," he said on Twitter.
That only shows how far away he is from catching, much less passing, the 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus.
The question used to be whether Woods was going to win a major.
Now it's whether he'll even play.
Only he knows how badly his left knee and left Achilles are injured, and Woods rarely has been willing to offer more than the bare minimum about his health, if that much. He withdrew last year from The Players Championship with a neck injury he said had been bothering him for a month. He said he ruptured his right Achilles in December 2008, yet never mentioned it until 16 months later.
It's no longer his pursuit of Nicklaus that leads to speculation. It's his health, too.
Woods skipped one tournament (Quail Hollow) because he wanted to give a "minor injury" time to heal. He withdrew from the next one (Players Championship) without even getting to the 10th hole and with a nine-hole score of 42 that ranks among his worst.
The biggest change with Woods is the perception of him.
Had this happened five years ago, the focus would have been entirely on his injury, not the score on his card. Yet there was plenty of chatter among players last week that Woods might not have been so quick to leave had he not been 6-over par.
Opinions about whether he could catch Nicklaus used to be based on his form.
In an online survey for readers, Golf Digest asked if they thought he would break the record. This was after Woods won the Masters and U.S. Open in 2002, and 73 percent said "yes." Two years later, when Woods had gone eight majors without winning and started to work with Hank Haney, the magazine asked the same question, and 71 percent said "no."
