Hot on the heels of my post on Tiger possibly missing the British Open, he has just announced that he is out for the rest of the season. This is very bad news for him and for golf and disastrous for the US TV networks, bless 'em! We can only hope that he fully recovers and can resume his remarkable career next season. He'll still be world number one, but it will be interesting to see how much his massive lead will be cut by then.
As part of his announcement, more medical information came to light that made his performance all the more amazing. As it turns out, contrary to Retief Goosen's crass remarks in Germany about him faking injury, Tiger was suffering from one of the most serious knee complaints. He has to have his anterior cruciate ligament fixed and if that wasn't enough, he has stress fractures in his leg too!! Apparently his playing partners could hear strange noises from his knee, which is never a good sign.
To win in such a condition - what a player, what an athlete! Not since Stephen Hendry won the world snooker championship with a broken arm in 1994 has anything so extraordinary been achieved. You'd have to wonder why Tiger took part at all in the US Open in such a condition, although it will surely go down in the annals of golf (and sport in general) as one of the greatest ever performances. Let's hope it doesn't also go down as his last.
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
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Contrary to what I wrote, if Phil Mickelson wins a major, a WGC event and two other tournaments this season in Tiger's absence, he can overtake him at the top of the rankings.
That's a big if, but I always thought that with his lead at the top, Tiger could have taken a few years off and still be world number one. Apparently not!
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