Remember, this is golf, not Greco-Roman wrestling or even wakeboarding.
Cut the melodramatics regarding Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson missing the 36-hole cut at the U.S. Open.
Sure, it’s newsworthy that the two leading figures of the past 20-plus years (laps ahead of whomever might qualify as No. 3, by the way) simultaneously missed the cut at a U.S. Open for the first time ever. But leave it to the drama peddlers — and those ignorant of golf in general and championship golf specifically — to cue the soft music and signal the end of an era.
In short, as long as there’s a Masters at Augusta National, as well a British Open, both Tiger and Phil will remain relevant, or at least in the conversation, in major championships for another few years.
Memories can be short. It was just three years ago that Tiger himself, at the annual Masters champions dinner, whispered to Nick Faldo, “I’m done.” Later that year came the infamous DUI arrest and saddest of mug shots.
The final numbers of a cut-short career were being etched in stone: 79 career victories, 14 major championships. If he’d been a team-sport athlete, he would’ve been resigned to the broadcast booth several years earlier, given his lumbar issues. If he’d been a horse, well …
Instead, Tiger was a golfer, and while golf demands many unique and hard-to-master talents, it doesn’t require the physical acumen of a triathlete. One last Hail Mary back surgery brought relief, and a certain return to golfing form, combined with his unmatched golfing IQ and emotional advantages, led to golf’s greatest comeback since Ben Hogan head-longed a Greyhound.
COMEBACK COMPLETE: Tigers wins the 2019 Masters.
Three wins, including the 2019 Masters, were followed by a downer of a 2020. In five starts since the COVID shutdown, Tiger’s missed cut this week follows four finishes between 37th and 58th since mid-July. The missed cut also came at Winged Foot, where mild faults are magnified.
He’ll likely make at least one more start between now and the rescheduled Masters in mid-November, and Augusta is where you’d expect him to return to competitive form in a normal year.
In a normal year, the Masters would be played in April and maybe, as it was in 2019, played in warmth, which obviously benefits a middle-aged man with a tight back. Last April’s sweat-soaked four days remain the underrated 15th club for Tiger’s long-awaited 15th major.
You can get bitter cold but also sunny heat there in April. In mid-November, though, the average high and low is 69 and 41 in Augusta. “I’ll take two sleeves of Titleists and a bin of IcyHot, please.”
Augusta National is also where the 50-and-over crowd can remain effective, which puts Mickelson in play for a while longer. In recent years, Fred Couples made noises there deep into his 50s. Bernhard Langer tied for eighth at age 56 in 2014, and in 2016 started the final round just two back before fading.
The “rough” is light at Augusta, the towering trees often offer escape routes for the wayward drivers, and the greens and greensides separate the short-game maestros from the mortals. All of that is why Mickelson, now 50, can still go to Augusta with hope.
Same, for Tiger and Phil, at most British Open venues, where the quirks of links golf usually stifle any advantage enjoyed by the modern bomb-and-gouge crowd.
Tiger won once in 2018 and twice in 2019. Mickelson won once in each of those years. This year has been worth a write-off for so many reasons, and maybe it’s worth ignoring both golfers’ struggles in 2020. The birth certificates, however, don’t itemize, they just keep counting.
But hold the dramatics and silence the funeral dirge for these two careers. Again, this is golf, not mountain climbing. If these two modern outliers can walk 72 holes without a cart or chiropractor, there are times and places where they’ll disprove the current vibe.
Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
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