I’ve got a hunch that we might have seen the last of Tiger Woods.
His statement was full of positive talk about coming back from back surgery, but the injury toll is starting to pile up.
There is only so much the body of an elite athlete can take, and Tiger seems to have taken more than his fair share already.
It has been one thing after another over the last few years.
A back injury is probably one of the worst you can get in sport, and that’s especially true for golf.
Like I say, I personally think he’ll struggle to come back from this one.
Obviously, he’s written off the Masters, and there’s a real doubt about the other majors as well in 2014.
Even if he does come back, I wouldn’t give him a chance of equalling the number of majors Jack Nicklaus has got.
It has been a long time since he’s won one, and we’ve already season over the last couple of seasons when Tiger has had his injury and off-course troubles, that the golf world has moved on without him.
Nothing stands still, even for someone who was as dominant in his sport as Tiger.
As Graeme McDowell said the other week, he has lost his aura, and once that happens, you very rarely get it back.
Tiger won’t want to come back just to be a member of the pack. If he isn’t contending at the top he’ll quickly call it a day.
So even if he does make another comeback, don’t expect it to last too long.Bradley right to get out of comfort zoneI was interested to read the Scottish Boys’ champion, Bradley Neil, speak in The Courier about his dilemma whether to defend his title next week or not.
After taking advice, he’s decided that now is the time to concentrate on the men’s amateur events.
It’s something I can relate to.
Like golf, in curling there are a couple of years when, if you’re doing well, junior and senior events overlap.
It definitely benefits you when you move out of the juniors completely to have had a taste of the next level.
It sounds to me like Bradley has made the right call, because he’s proved at the start of the season that he can compete with the top men, so to hang around in the juniors for too long could mean his game would stagnate. Staying in a comfort zone won’t improve him.It’s getting tougherThe men’s curling team have struggled in the World Championships in China this week, which is a shame because my brother Glen is in the squad and I’ve played mixed competitions with the skip Ewan MacDonald.
Like the women’s event a couple of weeks ago, it probably shows that the sport is moving on every year.
It used to be that you could win the Scottish and you’d automatically have a great chance of winning the Worlds. That doesn’t happen any more.
You’re coming up against full-time teams and that counts at the top level.
We had a good week in Canada, finishing runners-up, but we’ll be looking to go one better in the last big one of the year, The Players Championship.Lee knows bestI’ve met Lee McConnell a few times, and it says everything about her career that she has won the most amount of medals of any Scottish athlete.
People think it must have been a hard decision for her to call it a day in the year of a home Commonwealth Games, but I think she will have known that the time is right.
It would be a fairytale to bow out at Hampden Park, but she will know the shape she is in, and the times she is running. That’s what will have made her mind up.