Doyel: Tiger Woods' withdrawal from PGA Championship illustrates his pain, and our love
The more he struggles, the worse he plays, the more we like him. This is not normal behavior for us, a society that equates victory with charisma, but nothing is normal when it comes to our relationship with Tiger Woods.
Woods winces, and kept wincing before his eventual withdrawal from the 2022 PGA Championship this weekend in Tulsa, and we want him to stop playing. Please stop him, somebody, before Tiger re-breaks one of those compound fractures in his leg, or before the fused vertebrae in his back lock up and send him down.
Years ago we rooted for Tiger Woods to win because we’d never seen anything like him, because we were watching historic greatness and that made us happy for us and grateful to him. So we rooted for him to win – he was going to win, regardless – and celebrated with him, because this was like watching Babe Ruth or Jim Brown or Jim Thorpe in real time. Tiger Woods made us happy … for us.
Now we root for him to show up, hoping he plays well but not even needing that anymore. We just need to see him play a few more times, one more time, one last time, before he’s gone.
Nothing lasts forever, not even Tiger Woods.
More: Tiger Woods withdraws in pain from PGA Championship
Falling in, out and back in love again with Tiger
Did you like him in 2009? Me neither. That was when the Tiger Woods sex scandal broke, and it feels ridiculous now writing those words – the Tiger Woods sex scandal – but that’s what it was, and we were riveted. His divorce shattered, the windshield on his 2009 Cadillac Escalade shattered, everything shattered.
Tiger Woods is … human?
No, we didn’t like that. And we didn’t like him for the reminder. We prefer our fairy tales to remain pure, like little Milan winning that state title so unexpectedly in 1954 that it inspired the movie “Hoosiers” more than 30 years later, or like Hank Aaron catching the Babe in 1974 despite the racism and death threats, rising above the ugliness and somehow staying there, a uniting force for anyone paying attention.
It wasn’t just Tiger’s behavior behind closed doors or in Perkins parking lots, but his behavior on the course. After his personal life fell apart in 2009, we started watching him differently. Now his club-smashing, curse-spitting behavior was no longer proof of his competitive greatness. It was proof of his suspect character. Or something like that.
Look, I’m not here to re-litigate the case of The People vs. Tiger Woods. The case is over, and everyone lost. I’m just reminding you of how it used to be.
For years we’d been hearing about and even watching this kid named Tiger, from the time he was on “The Mike Douglas Show” at age 2 to “That’s Incredible” at age 5 to his amateur dominance to his two years at Stanford, where he won the first college tournament he entered in 1995, won the NCAA individual championship in 1996 and then turned pro in 1997, winning the Masters that year by a record 12 strokes.
He was 20 years old, and we were in love. He won 14 major titles in 12 years, winning all four majors at least three times. He was just 32, and he was going to blow past Jack Nicklaus’ PGA record of 18 career major wins.
More: Photos: The moments that have shaped Tiger Woods' career
But then came that Escalade crash outside to his Florida mansion in November 2009, reports that his wife, Elin, had chased him out of the driveway with a golf club – you couldn’t make this up – and smashed the rear window before he drove into a fire hydrant and a tree.
It unraveled from there, Tiger’s personal life and his family and his golf career. We were so mad at him, remember? How could you do that to your wife, to your children? All of which was another way of saying:
How could you do that to us?
He was winless in six of the next eight years, and arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in 2017 when he was found asleep behind the wheel of his running car. He pleaded guilty to reckless driving, saying he’d had a bad reaction to a prescription drug. Then came his nearly fatal one-car crash in 2021, when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department concluded he’d been driving more than 80 mph – the speed limit was 45 mph – before rolling his car over and crushing bones in both lower legs.
By then, though, we’d fallen back in love with Tiger.
Withdrew from PGA Championship
Did you adore him in 2019? Me too. That was the year he won the Masters again – you feeling those goosebumps, even now? – and the crowd was following him, filling in his footsteps like water on a beach. He looked around at one point and was taken aback at the sight of thousands of fans escorting him up the fairway of the 72nd hole.
For years we’d seen Tiger Woods scenes that were just not normal for golf, a staid and stuffy sport where the crowd generally behaves itself, but since 1997 crowds had struggled to behave themselves around Tiger. Not from naughtiness, but from love. We had to get closer.
After he won that 2019 Masters, his 10-year-old son Charlie ran into his arms just off the 72nd green, both wearing red shirts and ballcaps, a moment of love and redemption for all of us.
But that 2021 crash in California was so bad, he wasn’t going to come back. No way. He nearly lost a leg in 2021, and anyway, he’d already played through three back surgeries and then a fourth, a lumbar fusion. Even before the 2021 crash, Tiger Woods was no longer Tiger Woods on the course. In his heyday he’d changed the game, hitting the ball so far that there was talk of “Tiger-proofing” courses.
After his back woes Woods recrafted his game, going from Nolan Ryan's 100-mph heater to Greg Maddux's guile and knowledge. And it worked. He won the 2019 Masters. Then he had a fifth back surgery in December 2020. Then he had that one-car accident two months later.
He returned for the 2022 Masters, but it was hard to watch. By the fourth round he was grimacing and limping and trying hard not to let it show. He made the cut but finished 23 shots back. We watched, but by the weekend it wasn’t fun.
Then came this past weekend at the PGA Championship, when he shot a second-round 69 but was clearly in distress. He shot a 79 in Round 3 and then withdrew, and that was for the best. Some of us – me for sure, probably lots of you – don’t want to see him like that.
Over the years Tiger has found humility and vulnerability and shared it with the rest of us, bringing us back to him like little Charlie off the 72nd green at Augusta National in 2019. We still long to watch him play more than any golfer in the world, but now our appreciation is like Tiger himself. It is more humble, selfless. We are so fond of him now, we’d rather not watch him suffer for our enjoyment.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Tiger Woods' withdrawal from PGA Championship shows his pain, our love
