Tiger Withdraws From Farmers Due To Deactivated Glutes
/The already delayed Farmers Insurance Open first round was deactivated due to fog just ten minutes before Tiger Woods was to tee off. For the next 30(!) minutes he stood in nearly the same location on Torrey's practice putting green, laughing with old coach Sean Foley, playing partner Billy Horschel and even Woody Austin. I stood watching for ten minutes before my tightening back suggested it was almost lunch hour in media dining, and I left.
As Woods explained following a WD on his 12th hole (Torrey's third), this is where his back locked up his glutes deactivated:
Q. When did the back start acting up?
TIGER WOODS: I guess between those two suspension. When we had that break. It just never loosened back up again. And when we went back out, it just got progressively tighter.
Q. Did you consider not playing?
TIGER WOODS: What's that?
Q. Did you consider not playing?
TIGER WOODS: No.
Q. How frustrating is this for you, considering everything that you've been through with your back?
TIGER WOODS: It's frustrating that it started shutting down like that. I was ready to go. I had a good warm-up session the first time around. Then we stood out here and I got cold, and everything started deactivating again. And it's frustrating that I just can't stay activated. That's just kind of the way it is.
Q. Is this new for you since your comeback?
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, very. This is -- usually don't have to wait like this. When I'm at home practicing I keep going, keep going, this is different.
Q. Same pain or a different pain?
TIGER WOODS: It's just my glutes are shutting off. Then they don't activate and then, hence, it goes into my lower back. So, I tried to activate my glutes as best I could, in between, but it just they never stayed activated.
Q. When did you first feel it?
TIGER WOODS: Whenever we were standing there on the putting green to see if we were going to go play or not. And I tried to activate it before we went back out, but it just never did.
Woods first started walking gimpily off the second tee, then carefully picked his chip-in for par at the second green, and first reached around to the deactivated glutes after the 3rd hole tee shot. (See photos below.)
Upon walking off the course on his 12th hole (Torrey North's 3rd green), Woods went quickly to the parking lot and his Porsche Panamera, spoke briefly to the press (full transcript above) and then left without stopping in the Visionworks Theraphy Center (fitness trailer) where physical therapists were available to work out any kinks. Or in this case, his deactivated glutes.
**Quotes from Nick Faldo and Peter Kostis from the Golf Channel telecast.
Nick Faldo – “He’s got a lot going on. Physically he has got to get this right again. He has got to go back to the drawing board on the swing.”
Nick Faldo – “He has got to find a way to swing a golf club – especially the driver – where the spine is not putting so much tension and torque onto it. That is his absolute must.”
Nick Faldo – “If you have physical issues, you have got to go through the warm-up process every single time. If he didn’t start again and hit the reset button and go through everything, it shows you how fragile he is. It indicates that he doesn’t have that residual strength right now if something like that can happen.”
Matt Gogel – “You don’t press injuries. This is smart.”
Peter Kostis – “It is sad to see that happen but I am happy that he is walking in because it is too easy to re-injure your disc.”
Peter Kostis – “It must be a little soul destroying for him.”
Peter Kostis – “For him to be out here exposing all of his weaknesses and flaws has got to be emotionally very difficult, and you add this to the equation is unbelievable.”
**The Golf Central postgame with Brandel and Notah was highlighted by these quotes...
Notah Begay (@NotahBegay3) – “It begs some very, very difficult questions in terms of how he is going to approach his game at this point… In his last eight tournaments, he has more missed cuts and withdrawals than he does finished events, much less getting into contention… Right now, qualifying for these big major championships is a question mark.”
Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) – “It’s one thing to have surgery to fix a problem, but it’s quite another if you don’t take care of what’s causing the problem… [Staying taller] is exactly what he needs to do, and that will eliminate this consistent and recurring back issue. But I just don’t see him doing it.”
Brandel Chamblee - “From now until he changes his golf swing, he’s going to continue to have back pain… When you watched him in 2008 [when he had knee issues], he didn’t bend over as much at address. His shoulder plane wasn’t as steep in his backswing… When you do that, you release your right side – you’re not impinging it. He’s impinging his right side now because of his golf swing. And it’s not going to go away, not as long as he’s doing this.”
**Steve DiMeglio in the USA Today:
His birth certificate reveals he's 39, but his body language makes it look like it's going on 60. Last week he shot his worst score as a pro – 82 – and missed the cut in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, marking the first time in his career he missed consecutive cuts.
Bob Harig of ESPN.com on where the WD lands on the list of Tiger WD's:
It is the sixth time Woods has withdrawn from a tournament due to injury in 304 PGA Tour starts, but all of them have occurred since 2010. Last year he withdrew during the final round of the Honda Classic with back problems, and a few weeks later he had surgery to repair a disk in his lower back.
After three months away, he returned in June, but managed to play just four tournaments, only finishing four rounds in one -- the Open Championship.
John Strege of GolfDigest.com recaps the scene and shares this from tee-picker-upper Billy Horschel:
Horschel said that Woods has shown signs of progress with his swing, notwithstanding his scoring and a host of loose shots.
“I have a golfer’s eye. I’ve seen what his swing has become. I think it’s a lot better. But he couldn’t swing the way he wanted to. I saw at his event [the Hero World Challenge in December] on Saturday and he was deadly sick and he played really well, so I knew he wasn’t that far off. I still think he’s not that far off. He just needs more reps.”
**Alex Miceli wonders when we'll stop caring about the Tiger spectacle and puts Woods' performance post-surgery into statistical perspective:
Since returning from back surgery to play the Quicken Loans National last June, Woods has played in 17 rounds. His scoring average during that stretch is 73.24, more than a half-shot worse than the worst-scoring Tour player of 2014, Derek Ernst, who ranked 177th at 72.593.
Not including his 12-hole drive-by in Thursday at Torrey Pines, Woods has played 306 holes since returning from back surgery: 2 eagles, 53 birdies, 181 pars, 54 bogeys, 12 double bogeys and 4 triple bogeys. That's 33 over during the stretch.
Golf Channel's on-site report about the glute deactivation.
Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post points out:
The surprise about Thursday’s exit is Woods, who had his back surgically repaired last March 31, pronounced himself as healthy as he has been in years at last week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, where he missed the cut by 12 shots.
Hank Gola of the New York Daily News writes:
It’s no longer off-base to ask whether Tiger Woods is done for good.
Robert Lusetich of FoxSports.com recalls Tiger leaving the Torrey Pines parking lot in 2008, broken leg and all but having grinded out a U.S. Open win. And now?
He was like a gunslinger in an old Western; the last man standing in a shootout who heroically won his 14th major on just one good leg.
He was, in the summer of 2008, a champion fulfilling his destiny, to become G.O.A.T.
On Thursday, Woods limped off Torrey Pines and into the same parking lot as he did almost seven years ago. But that's where the similarities ended.
Rex Hoggard on the shock of fans watching Tiger pack it in early.
The hushed tone of stunned fans was broken only by a single sympathetic comment from a member of his dwindling gallery: “Man, it’s sad when a guy’s career is ended by an injury.”
