Fourth back surgery for Tiger Woods, who hopes to win his most important match, a back pain that doesn't want to give him a break. "I can't wait to go back to a normal life - says the champion - to play with my children, to compete in professional golf and to live without the pain I've been fighting for a long time". The problem has been going on for at least three years, yet three operations weren't enough to solve it. It is to be hoped that the former world number one can really resume a normal life, as for golf, never say never, but he finds it hard to believe. On its website Tiger, which today is more a brand than a sports one, promises to be committed to 2018, but it is legitimate to think that he has to write like this for script needs, for the fields he has to design, for his restaurant, for the remaining sponsors. Maybe this promise is just the last leg of a long goodbye. But golf is strange and never ceases to amaze. When you least expect it, a player who seemed finished rises from his ashes. This is the case of Edoardo Molinari, protagonist of an extraordinary victory at the Morocco Open last week. That of Edo, 37 years old, big brother of the two Molinaris, is an important and painful return.
Bad luck struck him a few years ago, at the height of his career, with a wrist problem, which he resolved with surgery and the inevitable convalescence. The ascent was tough, because Edoardo, already winner of three titles and Ryder Cup player, had to start from the bottom, from qualifying. In the end he made it and this success put him at peace for a few years. However, engineer Molinari is not one to be satisfied with taking part and guaranteeing himself a place in the standings, as he demonstrated in Morocco. He is a thoroughbred horse and when he feels he is close to the finish line, he finds the great sprint, as only champions can do. It is therefore to be hoped that he will still make our hearts beat, in the long season of the European tour. Golf is strange, we said, as Sergio Garcia demonstrated two weeks ago by winning the Masters, when no one was betting on him anymore. Nothing prevents us from hoping, then, that even Tiger, who was the best of all, at the end of this long ordeal, will find his health and his will again. In 2018 he will be 42 years old. Jack Nicklaus won his last major at 46. There is still time to delude yourself.
