Nearing 40 And Injured. Is The Sun Setting On Tiger Woods Career?

Rugby fans in Ireland feel it with the retirement of Brian O’Driscoll, those in England and France with Johnny Wilkinson hanging up his boots and in the not too distant future golf fans around the world will mourn the end of Tiger Woods playing days.

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It seems Tiger has been around forever.  That’s because from the moment he hit our screens as a young professional in the late nineties he was a winner.  A Major champion.  A swashbuckling entertainer.  He didn’t just beat fields, he minced them.  We kind of took for granted that Woods would be around forever, but lately we have started to see the slowdown that will eventually lead to his retirement.

Some have speculated the now 38 year old Tiger could play for another 10 years, others less, but given his injuries, their accumulation and his resultant swing changes he has made to compensate, right now it’s unlikely he will make the 2014 US Open let alone be a competitive senior like a Watson, a Couples or a Langer.

The 2014 Masters was just the third Major Tiger has missed since 1997.  Yes Bubba was great and Spieth made the final day dramatic but the casual viewers turned off in their droves when they heard Woods was out.  Like it or loath it, Tiger’s pulling remains as powerful today as in his heyday, even if now the fans are tuning-in more out of a morbid fascination with what bad luck is going to befall him or in hope of rekindling past glories.

The Masters and the Majors will survive after Woods but without question golf will struggle to find a new figure which transcends the sport like him.  The likes of McIlroy and Spieth ‘arrived’ onto the scene; Tiger ‘burst’ onto it.  Better still he burst through it, like a artic through a road barrier and just kept on truckin’.

But it’s not just golf that fascinates people with Woods, it’s the backstory, his youth, his colour, his father, his relationships, his personality, his body, his money, his scandal and his reinvention.  He may have personally earned over a billion dollars since turning pro but billions more business bucks are invested in the game through Woods the brand.

In my lifetime there was Nicklaus and Palmer. Then came Seve and Faldo.  And then came Tiger Woods.  And he’s still here.  It may be the evening of his career and the light may have faded but the sun hasn’t set yet.  Not just yet.