[ad_1]
Tiger Woods underwent a microdiscectomy procedure to remove a pressurized disc fragment in his back that he said was creating discomfort after playing the event in Florida with his son, Charlie. Woods completed the procedure after the PNC Championship in December 2020 and is now indefinitely hors de combat.
The operation, which is the fifth on Tiger’s back in his career, will bar Woods from playing at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Genesis Invitational (an event he is hosting) earlier this year.
There is no timeline for his return as the 45-year-old Woods remains stuck on 82 wins on the PGA Tour, which is tied with Sam Snead for most of all time.
“I can’t wait to start training and I’m focused on getting back to the Tour,” Woods said in a statement.
The Masters, where Woods has won five times, including in 2019, kicks off in just 11 weeks.
Woods is coming off one of the poorest seasons of his career as he scored just one world top 10 in 2020, missed the cup at the US Open and was not a factor. during the two other major championships.
He missed a good part of the season at the start of the year due to a stiff back. This was before the sport was shut down amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Woods did not play between the Genesis Invitational in February and the Memorial Tournament in July. He’s also missed events he normally plays every year, like the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship.
While the timing is surprising, it’s not necessarily unexpected news regarding Woods’ career arc. After Woods had his massive spinal fusion surgery in 2017, it saved him time, but probably not as much as many people thought. Here is the New York Times from May 2019.
“If you were one of Woods’ competitors, you could say, ‘Maybe I could wait a bit,’ said Dr. Steven Atlas, associate professor of medicine at Harvard.
Dr Atlas has said he’s telling patients it’s one thing for an athlete like Woods to have this surgery – it can be risky, but he could also get a few more years out of his playing career, which could be worth it. millions of dollars.
But he cautions typical middle-aged patients. “Once they have this merger, it cannot be undone,” said Dr Atlas. “And it is likely that they will have surgery later,” because of the causes of the fusion instability.
“If your goal is to heal, that’s not what it’s going to offer you,” he said.
Tiger took advantage of the time he bought from 2018-20 by winning three times (including the Masters!). He came up the mountain, and now the cost of this surgery is starting to come back. The cost was already high as rehab and physiotherapy were undoubtedly incredibly painful, but the future cost was unknown … until now.
And while the nature of this most recent surgery appears relatively minor compared to spinal fusion, questions remain. First, when will he return, and what form will he be in when he does, given that he will be 46 this calendar year? Second, his game was already pretty poor in 2020 with (apparently) decent health, so where will he be after that? Third, how many more surgeries will there be in the future?
Frame it the right way, and the conclusion should probably be that Tiger’s win at the 2019 Masters was the biggest achievement in the history of the sport. As he passed out for the rest of this year, it became clear that his green jacket may have been a final assault on the record books. That might not be how it will play out, but maybe it should be. This victory was amazing and the opportunity to pay tribute to the best who have ever done so.
Woods’ price has gotten so high just to be comfortable, let alone to compete with the Rory McIlroys and Dustin Johnson of the world. Hopefully he will return with fervor and as much play as he did for this period at the end of 2018 and 2019, but the wait now, at 45 after five back surgeries and the threat of more to the future, probably should be that he will. do not.
[ad_2]
Source link