Newsflash: Tiger Woods is NOT back

For the past five years, the talking heads at ESPN have talked about the same thing over and over and over: when is Tiger Woods coming back?  Five years ago they said it would be the next year; four years ago they said it would be the next year; three years ago they said . . . you get the idea.

As the saying goes, a broken clock is right twice a day.  After five years of predicting that Tiger Woods was about to win a golf tournament, he finally won a golf tournament, winning the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

According to the talking heads, this means Tiger is back.  He’s BACK, baby!  One of the talking heads said that Tiger Woods is now the prohibitive favorite to win the Masters’ next year, an opinion reflected in the wagering.  Frankly, I’d love to get a piece of that action; anyone who wants to put money on Tiger, give me the field.

Tiger went from being a player who hadn’t won a tournament in five years, to a player who has won one tournament in five years.  It’s an improvement, but unless he does parlay this win into a winning streak it doesn’t improve his winning percentage by that much.

Plus, Tiger is still 42 years old and, unless he has made a deal of some sort with Beelzebub, he will continue to age.  Barring injury, players don’t suddenly flip a switch at some age and go from great to hopeless; their skills gradually diminish as they age.  People generally remember Willie Mays’ tenure with the Mets as a disaster, but in fact he posted one of the 20 best seasons for a player over 35 in MLB history.  The fact that Willie Mays could still hit a home run at age 41 did not mean he could hit 50; the fact that Tiger CAN win a golf tournament does not mean he is going to start winning multiple majors for the foreseeable future.

There is also the fact that Tiger entered the Sunday of the Tour Championship with a three-stroke lead.  This is important as Tiger has never won a tournament in his career by coming from behind (and, conversely, he had never squandered a three-stroke lead on a Sunday).  That means he has to be a front-runner; one bad round (even one bad hole) on Thursday, Friday or Saturday and his chances of finishing first diminish dramatically.  He has a narrow window, and the chances of making that window get smaller and smaller as time does its inexorable thing.

And I haven’t even mentioned the knee surgeries, back surgeries, and other physical ailments that have plagued him.  He has pronounced himself to be physically fit before only to have his body break down soon after.  Things that are surgically repaired tend to break down again and need re-fixing, and they never come back better than before.

Bottom line: Tiger woods won a golf tournament.  Good for him!  Will he make a habit of it?  I doubt it.  He’s played in 18 tour events in 2018 and finished outside the top ten in 11 of them, which does not sound like someone dominating the circuit.  Tiger is JAG: Just Another Guy.  He isn’t back to being Tiger, despite what every talking head on ESPN will tell you.  He’s an over-the-hill duffer with a spate of physical ailments, and once in a while his body will cooperate and give him a taste of past glory. 

But it’s not going to happen on a regular basis.