Tiger Woods bids farewell to the Farmers Insurance Open (February 5-8) on the first round, after 11 holes and a partial result of 2 strokes over par. After the disappointing annual debut last week, the champion also plays badly in San Diego, hits the ball violently and in a disorderly manner, but above all he appears to be in pain and touches his back several times right from the start and after a couple of hours he throws the sponge. It's the third time Tiger has retired in the last eight tournaments and this one looks even worse than the others. Was this perhaps the prelude to his definitive retirement from competitive golf?
Seeing him like this, one would think so, above all because Tiger has always been a stubborn and determined sportsman, while today that willpower is no longer there, perhaps compromised by too many ailments. Heading towards the exit, the former number one offers an explanation for this latest abandonment. In front of his Porsche, while caddy Joe LaCava laboriously fixes his bag in the car, Tiger says it was a muscle problem. In essence, he did his routine too early compared to tee time, postponed due to fog, and the forced two-hour wait cooled his buttocks and compromised the morning work done on his body.
An explanation that reveals how fragile Woods' athletic outfit is today and leads us even more to wonder how much he will be able to play in these conditions. In fact, it is not clear how Tiger, beyond the optimism that he expresses in words, can be competitive if every time a wrong blow is enough to knock him out. Someone will say that the problem is psychological and not physical, but it doesn't matter what the truth is, the result doesn't change.
Golf today has a new world number one, Rory McIlroy, a very talented boy with many victories still ahead. The king dead, long live the king then? It's not that easy, because no one, not even Rory, has Woods' charisma, elegance, magnetic force. In the next few days we will know what the champion's decisions will be, whether he will face the Florida Swing which begins in Palm Beach on February 25th or whether in 2015 he will reserve his image and his strength only to the majors, or, and we hope not, whether he will choose a 'other option, the least appreciated by all.
