Bad news from the Tiger Woods front: the champion will miss the Honda Classic next week, even though the tournament was on his seasonal schedule. It is a choice consistent with what was announced ten days ago: an indefinite retirement from competition, at least until he feels competitive again.
“I'd like to play the Honda Classic – Tiger wrote on his website – it's a tournament in the city where I live and it's important to me, but I won't be there if my game isn't right. In any case, I expect to play again very soon."
When? Mystery.
Certainly Tiger will not even make the world championship, the WGC Cadillac, at the Doral in Miami (March 5-8) because he fell out of the top 50 players in the Ranking (today he is number 66). On the other hand, the next opportunity to return to the field is one of his favorite tournaments, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but it starts on March 19 and still seems too close.
It is to be hoped that he feels ready for the Masters, scheduled for April 9 to 12, because it would be a really bad sign if he missed his favorite major for the second consecutive year. Twelve months ago Tiger didn't go to Augusta, for the first time in his career, because he had back surgery, but this time the reason would be an endless crisis of confidence, much more difficult to heal than a scalpel wound.
