Tiger "Hopeful" For Bay Hill, Masters; Serious Questions Loom About Tavistock Cup Fitness

Tiger Tweeted that the "doc" called it "only a mild strain" of "the left Achilles" and that he "can resume hitting balls late in week and hopeful for next week."

Naturally, after hearing his health is not as bad as first feared, your next thought goes to his availability for the Tavistock Cup, that leads-by-example homage to everything people hate about golf which also does so much or so little for charity depending on whose numbers you believe.

Either way, great news that Tiger's injury isn't severe, but I have to say that I hadn't give his WD much thought today until I read Ron Sirak's reflections. Coming from a longtime Tiger observer who has generally given Tiger the benefit of the doubt and who avoid cynicism by-and-large, I couldn't help but detect a cynical tone in this GolfDigest.com column wondering what's really going on with Woods (filed before the evening health update via Twitter).

You always get the feeling that whatever is going on is not exactly what you are being told. Perhaps Woods is hurt worse than we have been told now. Or maybe he just lost interest Sunday after a 38 on the front nine and then a water ball on No. 10. Or maybe he just doesn't want to play at the Bay Hill event, which is run by IMG, to get back at his former agency. We just don't know.

Doug Ferguson spells out the state of Tiger's game following the lastest events.

Woods has played only 32 tournaments since returning, at the 2010 Masters, from the scandal in his personal life. He has missed the cut twice. He has withdrawn three times. And he has 21 finishes out of the top 10 — that’s as many times out of the top 10 from the 2004 U.S. Open to his last official win at the 2009 Australian Masters.

Woods has not played a complete season since 2009, and that one didn’t get started until the Match Play Championship when he returned from reconstructive knee surgery.

He’s not the same player he was. That much is clear.

He might not ever be.