Former champion finished his second round of The Open on 14 over par – we should enjoy him while we can
: Shutterstock/ROBERT PERRY
Colin Montgomerie appears to have deleted his X account. That may feel like a strange place to start a piece about Tiger Woods and whether we have seen the last of golf’s GOAT at the Open following his second round 77 which will likely see him miss the cut this year by at least 10 shots. But in the context of the controversy which flared up earlier this week, it makes more sense.
To recap, for those living under a rockor those who just aren’t that interested in golf, in which case fair enoughMonty gave an eve-of-Open interview in which he dared to suggest the 15-time major champion no longer possessed the X-factor which once saw him bestride the golfing world like a colossus.
“I hope people remember Tiger as Tiger was,” Monty told The Times. “The passion and the charismatic aura around him. There is none of that now. At Pinehurst last month’s US Open, where Woods also missed the cut he did not seem to enjoy a single shot and you think, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ He’s coming to Troon and he won’t enjoy it there either.”
Monty went on to suggest, whisper it, that Tiger might in fact be past his best.
“Aren’t we there?” he replied when told that Woods, 48, said he would call it a day when he was “no longer competitive”. “I’d have thought we were past there. There is a time for all sportsmen to say goodbye, but it’s very difficult to tell Tiger it’s time to go. Obviously, he still feels he can win. We are more realistic.”
Montgomerie subsequently rowed back on those comments, insisting on X that they had been taken out of context by many. His account has now apparently been deleted, for reasons unknown. If it was because of a social media pile-on, that is a shame.
The truth is, it wasn’t a very controversial opinion in the first place. Woods is past his best. There is no denying that. He is hobbling around with a damaged right leg which he almost lost in a car crash three years ago, and can only play competitive golf sporadically so as to spare his body more pain. After his opening round 79, he was forced to deny he was playing “on painkillers”.
: AFP/Paul Ellis
But should he call time on his career? The answer, emphatically, is: only if he wants to.
This is the exact same debate which swirled around Andy Murray a few short months ago when a BBC journalist suggested it might be time for the Scottish player to bow out gracefully rather than “tarnish his legacy”. Murray responded pointedly on social media: “Tarnish my legacy? Do me a favour. I’m in a terrible moment right now, I’ll give you that. Most people would quit and give up in my situation right now. But I’m not most people and my mind works differently. I won’t quit. I will keep fighting and working to produce the performances I know I’m capable of.”
Woods is in the same boat. He is still raging against the dying of the light. He still feels he has more left in the tank, however improbable that might seem to some. And who are we to gainsay him? Who would have thought he could win the Masters in 2019? Answer: he did.
Woods is arguably in the top five sportspeople who have has ever livedright up there with Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, Serena Williams and Usain Bolt. If he feels he can can still be competitive in Opens, we should enjoy watching him try (Woods’ barbed response to Monty was delicious, by the way: “As a past champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not. He’s not a past champion. So he doesn’t get to make that call. I do.”)
: Neil Squires
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