"That's why you guys listen and I play."

Doug Ferguson considers the state of Tiger and while the comments about his lost mystique from Graeme McDowell are eye-opening, it's Tiger's view of the golf media that I found most intriguing.

Tiger Woods stepped from behind a microphone, thankful to be done with a short interview that felt like an intrusion. He took 23 questions, most of them about his golf, a few others about his left leg, then walked off without looking at anyone.

"That's why you guys listen," he muttered under his breath, "and I play."

He was as dismissive as ever, another example of how much has changed in his world, and how little he realizes it.

He is not the Tiger Woods he once was.

Such bravado used to be accepted from Woods because he always backed it up.

On the golf course, he set an unparalleled standard of excellence. Starting Thursday, he'll compete in the PGA Championship without having won anything in nearly two years. His agent said he once rejected 100 emails a day from companies wanting to get involved with the world's most famous athlete. In the 16 months since Woods returned from a sex scandal, he still doesn't have a corporate logo on his golf bag. His only new endorsement is a Japanese heat rub.

And this analysis from Ferguson:

Woods has never warmed to the media, mastering the art of saying very little, but with a smile.

The shield now is a cement wall.

Woods once said he never read anything, and even turned down the TV when one of his friends was playing, because the media had opinions without having all the facts. Now he reads everything. He will be the first to admit that the calamity in his personal life is no one's fault but his own. But he thinks the media has made it personal.