It’s official.
The page has turned on Tiger Woods.
He is not, nor should he be, one of the top five story lines heading into a tournament for the foreseeable future.
He was, at one point, the most dominant presence in the most individualistic sport anywhere. He was the guy who affected other players. He was the guy who surprised us when he missed a 5-foot putt. He was the guy about whom most betting houses said, “Do you want Tiger or the field?”
And more times than not you wanted Tiger.
Now we are wondering why he is even in the field.
Sure, Tiger has earned a bevy of exemptions into the most prestigious tournaments in golf because of his sterling pedigree and his trophy case full of major championships.
He has a lifetime pass into the PGA Championship, which started Thursday at Whistling Straits. Tiger limped out in 3-over-par 75, which was worse than the actual number may read.
Woods played in the morning when the course was gettable. He still carded five bogeys despite hitting it well. In fact, about the only thing that was familiar to the Tiger of old was his foul mouth.
The rest was in stark contrast. He missed more makable putts Thursday than he did in all of the majors of the early 2000s combined. He once was an assassin within 8 feet; Thursday he was asinine.
Never mind that his biggest strength in his heyday – the fact that he mentally owned every other golfer on the planet – is now his biggest drawback. Thursday he made par on his opening hole, and it was the first major and only the second tournament he’s played this season in which he made better than a bogey on the first hole of the event.
He’s nervous – and who can blame him for that – and we’re pretty sure that Tiger doesn’t even believe Tiger can win anymore.
We tried to find a silver lining with a mid-30s finish at the Greenbrier or a top-20 at Augusta – a place where he could shoot 70 with a shovel and three rakes in his bag – but it’s a fool’s errand to try to pretend this is the Tiger we knew.
Think of it this way: Since Tiger last won a major – it’s been 2,615 days as of this morning – Serena Williams has won 13 majors and Justin Bieber went from YouTube sensation to international superstar.
Heck, Facebook, which in 2008 was battling with something called MySpace, has erupted and in some minds jumped the shark in the time since Tiger was holding a major championship trophy in his hands.
It’s OK to admit it, and we’re finally here.
Will golf be OK? We say yes because of the young stars who have forged a strong game and a stronger will in large part hoping to topple Tiger.
In truth, no one knows the future of the game. By percentage, fewer people follow golf now than in decades past. The TV numbers are always higher when Woods is in the mix. Yes, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are budding superstars, but those two would have to be in a sudden-death playoff while being chased by the ghost of Chester the lion while Donald Trump offered play-by-play to match the cross-culture appeal of Tiger in contention on Sunday.
Who knows what the future holds as Tiger works to find a game that’s just bad. Golf’s wide-range popularity will suffer because of the broad audience Tiger attracted and the fact that he brought the “must watch because you don’t know what amazing thing he might do” factor.
That’s simply a fact, and one that every individual-based sport faces when the uber-stars fade.
And now it’s history, replaced for a short time by the train-wreck factor that was whether Tiger would make the cut. Or whether he would break 80.
Now, the intrigue of awful has been replaced by the indifference of irrelevance. It’s sad to watch the greats limp into the shadows, but it’s also inevitable.
Sure, he may have a flash or two left, but we are now to the point – and maybe we have been for a while – that we are celebrating when Woods makes the cut. Since turning pro, he missed the cut only three times in his first 64 major tournaments. He has missed the weekend in three of his last four majors and is in danger of doing it again today.
Sadly, making the weekend is a celebratory situation now. It gives us the chance to see Woods in red on Sunday, even if the vision is more about recalling a memory than making one.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343. Follow him on Twitter @jgreesontfp.