What’s Tiger Woods Really Thinking?

Does he really want to keep playing? Is he tarnishing his legacy?

by John Furgele (The Par for the Course 228)

On Aug. 13, 1977, future Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson retired. The Oriole great was batting .149 with 1 home run and 4 RBI when he walked away.

On May 28, 1989, future Hall of Famer Michael Jack Schmidt retired. The Phillie great was batting .203 with 6 home runs and 28 RBI.

On Aug. 3, 1989, future Hall of Famer Jim Rice retired. The Red Sox great was batting .234 with 6 home runs and 28 RBI.

The toughest thing to do in sports is to know when it is time to walk away from the game. Very few go out on top, at their pinnacle, and that’s understandable. What makes athletes great is their drive, their resolve. They always think they can do it and sometimes they can. Heck, George Foreman won a heavyweight boxing title at age 45.

Father Time is not kind to all of us, especially athletes. While John Sterling can still call Yankee games at age 85, most athletes are lucky to play past age 35. The hardest part is coming to grips that it’s over.

I grew up a Phillies fan. For some reason, I started following them in the summer of 1976. When they lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the ’76 NLCS, I was sad, but I knew I was hooked.

They went on to lose two more NLCS—Phils fans remember Black Friday in ’77—before winning it all in 1980. That ’80 team remains my second favorite sports team of all-time (Team USA, 1980, Miracle on Ice, will always be number one).

Schmidt, despite being overshadowed by more colorful personalities and being dogged by a tough media, was my favorite Phillie. Despite collecting 2,234 hits, 548 HR and 1,595 RBI, he remains underappreciated by the baseball world.

I remember the day he retired. He cried. But he knew that it was time and despite the .203 batting average, his legacy is untarnished.

Brooks Robinson knew that day was coming. In 1975, he batted just .201 with 6 HR and 53 RBI. Like most, he thought he could turn it around in 1976. He didn’t, batting .211 with 3 HR and 11 RBI in 71 games. But he came back in ‘77 for one more try and in August knew it was time to hang ‘em up.

Rice had a similar decline. In 1986, he batted .324 with 20 HR and 112 RBI. That was his last great season as injuries and age took over. He probably should have retired after the 1988 season; a season where he batted .264 with 15 HR and 72 RBI, but he wanted to go out on a high so he came back—until Aug. 3.

I write this because of what we saw over the weekend at Augusta National at The Masters. While Scottie Scheffler was winning his second “Green Jacket,” as always, CBS had to show us every shot taken by Tiger Woods.

I felt sorry for Woods, which is something I thought I would never say. As great as Woods is (second best ever?), his demise is largely because of him. The extramarital affairs, the car crash, the DUI—those happened because of choices he made.

But we remain enamored, hoping that he can defy and bring us another moment of glory. In that hope, we get to see him hit into bunkers, into water, into trees, card triple bogeys, and shoot 159 on Saturday and Sunday.

When he approached 18, the adoring crowd cheered, just like they did when Arnold Palmer played his last competitive round at the US Open in 1994. The crowds also cheered in 1977, when the well-past-his-prime Brooks Robinson came to the plate.

I give Woods credit for trying, but he is an immortal. Phil Mickelson is not an immortal, so if he plays The Masters at age 70, that’s fine. That goes for Fred Couples, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, and all the other former champions.

Who am I to tell somebody they should retire. But, Woods is a different cat. This guy changed the game of golf. Because of him, fitness became an important part of the game. Power became an important part of the game. When Jack Nicklaus won his sixth Masters in 1986 at age 46, he had a Dad Bod, his belly hanging over his plaid pants.

Woods forced golfers to become fit athletes and he also made them all millions of dollars, so for me to tell him to hang it up is truly out of bounds.

That said where is the pride? It’s okay for Vijay Singh to be 14 over par—he’s just another golfer that’s won a few majors—but Tiger Woods?

Woods says he will play on and plans to compete in the PGA Championship, the US Open, and the British Open. Again, that’s his choice, but when he flew back to Florida Sunday evening, I wonder if he had a conversation with himself that began with “Is this really worth it anymore?”

Professional golf is a mess right now. We have two tours—PGA and LIV—which has led to chaos. LIV players can play majors, but they can’t get World rankings points. Last year, Jon Rahm bashed LIV; this year he swallowed his pride and took a nine figure guarantee to join what truthfully is, a Triple A circuit.

The game needs Tiger Woods. I’d like to see him as PGA commissioner. He has the clout to unite the two sides. There supposedly is a merger agreement in place, but today, we still have two tours.

Woods could direct his energies to finding a solution. He has the game for that. Players would listen, sponsors would listen, and he could write and right/rite his next chapter of immortality.

That won’t happen today as he is determined to carry on and keep playing and he could prove me wrong by finding his game and winning another major. I don’t think that will happen, but I certainly don’t know it.

Watching Woods shoot 159 was sad on many, many levels. He’s too great; he’s an immortal, and we want to remember immortals at their very best. We didn’t see that in Augusta.

And, that’s disheartening.