Pro Golf Now
Fansided

Setting the Right Expectations for Tiger Woods

By Christian Paszko

ORLANDO, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 20: Tiger Woods of the United States and son Charlie Woods line up a putt on the 15th hole during the final round of the PNC Championship at the Ritz Carlton Golf Club on December 20, 2020 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 20: Tiger Woods of the United States and son Charlie Woods line up a putt on the 15th hole during the final round of the PNC Championship at the Ritz Carlton Golf Club on December 20, 2020 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Tiger Woods  will be making his highly anticipated return to golf at the weekend’s PNC Championship. Once again, he’ll be playing alongside his son Charlie at the Father/child event,  (can’t say father/son because Nelly Korda is playing with her father Petr).

While I know everyone is excited to see the greatest player of a generation back on the course, it would be wise to set proper expectations for this week and going forward.

First things first, this is not a competitive event. The PNC Championship is an event strictly for fun, having pros compete with their family members. It’s a two day scrambles event, not the US Open, it’s not that serious of an event. There are no points on the line or anything.

Secondly, Tiger hasn’t played in a tour event for over a calendar year after having his 5th back surgery on December 23, 2020 to remove a pressurized disc fragment pinching a nerve. His last Tour appearance was the 2020 Masters that was played in November of that year.

Tiger wont look like he did when he was his improbable 5th Masters in 2019. He’s so far out of practice, anticipating him playing at that level are unreasonable.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, Tiger Woods is damn lucky to still have his leg. We all saw how bad his car accident was. How much damage his car sustained, how far off the road it rolled before coming to a halt. Woods himself has talked about how he could’ve lost his leg.

Yet, when Tiger posted a video of him on Twitter on the driving range a few weeks ago, the internet exploded. I saw a ton of tweets saying, “he’s going to win another major”. That’s just not realistic to think he’s going to come back into major championship form. It’s not fair to him, it’s not fair to you as a viewer and golf fan.

With all of the injuries and surgeries he’s had, all of the rehab, the car accident, all of the time off, Tiger winning another major at this stage of his career is nothing more than a pipe dream. He knows it, he’s said it and you have to go in knowing that as well.

I’m not at all saying you can’t root for him to play well. I just think we should put the bar at a lower level and just enjoy watching Tiger Woods play golf while we still can. At least until Charlie is old enough to turn pro and probably take the PGA Tour by storm.

Tiger Woods has had a storybook career and one that may never be matched. Unfortunately though, his glory days are over. For now we should just settle into watching and enjoying the version of Tiger we have before he really fades away.

Home/Golf News