The Masters are better with Tiger Woods in the field, the same way the Masters were always better with Jack, Arnie or Ben. The tournament could start 80 amateurs and it'd still be must-see TV, but there's something intoxicating about seeing the greatest golfers competing in the biggest tournament on the best course. No matter what you think of Tiger, how much you love the generation that's succeeding him or how much you abhor the wall-to-wall coverage, you can't deny this: While The Masters is far greater than any one golfer, the tournament always feels bigger when he's around.
With all that being said, with the understanding that the best thing for golf, and the most entertaining for the common fan, would be Tiger battling some combination of DJ, Phil, Rory, JDay or Spieth at Amen Corner on Sunday, you'd have to believe anything else but this: The closest Tiger Woods should come to the course at Augusta National is looking out at the 18th green during the champion's dinner.
Don't play, Tiger. Please.
I hate it - hate it - when people tell athletes what to do or how to act or what to believe, so the hypocrisy isn't lost on me. This has been a problem ever since people were telling Babe Ruth not to eat and drink so much, but now with the circle of repetition on social media (particularly Twitter), the whole thing's become more pronounced.
"You're finished; retire." "Quit while you're on top." "Sign the contract, it's more than I'll make in 10 lifetimes." "Take a hometown discount." "Don't play for the Mets, Willie Mays." In this case, it'd be something along the lines of, "you're going to make a fool of yourself if you tee it up, Tiger - spare yourself and us the indignity."
This isn't about that. Who cares about embarrassment? Arnold Palmer played in the Masters until he was 74 years old. He didn't make the cut in his last 22 appearances. He teed it up not to win (past a certain point - for a majority of those 22 missed cuts there's no doubt an image of him slipping on the green jacket at least flashed through his mind) but because he could.
In the 20 British Opens before the 2009 event that saw him come within a putt of one of the greatest wins sports has ever seen, Tom Watson didn't play or missed the cut at the Open championship 11 times and made the top 25 three times, only once since 1997.
You keep playing. It's what you do. Golf never passes you by. Competing may, but not the sport itself. So keep swinging until you can't. Those MCs in the results column mean nothing - erased by all those Ws from years ago.
No, Tiger shouldn't play because the best-case scenario involves him emerging healthy and unscathed from the tournament he dominated 20 years ago. He's rushed back from injury far too many times in the past decade, but particularly the last five years, and it's clearly done his body more harm than good. This year he did it right - long layoff, long recovery, long golf rehab - and still only made it seven rounds in 2.25 tournaments. Keep resting. It feels as if Tiger is one swing from being done for real. (Maybe it's already happened.) That can happen at any point, but why rush it at a tournament nobody expects you to play two months after an injury that derailed his most promising comeback attempt in years.
Imagine being in Tiger's shoes. Imagine laying down to sleep at night and knowing that, for a five-year period, you might have been better at golf than any athlete has ever been at anything. Of course you think you could turn it on for four days and pull a miracle. Jack in '86! Watson in '09! Fred Couples and Bernhard Langer teeing off late on Sundays in the past few years! Golf doesn't discriminate against the older and infirm.
The dream is there. He wouldn't be one of the greatest athletes in history if he thought small and didn't have the self-belief to win every time he teed it up. That belief, right now, is pure delusion. Tiger says he hasn't played a round since withdrawing from a tournament in Dubai on Super Bowl weekend. He's practicing, he says, but as of last week still hadn't played a full round in any capacity. Brandel Chamblee, not exactly the biggest Tiger fan, says he wouldn't be surprised if Woods played. Christine Brennan of USA TODAY thinks he should play.
But what's the endgame? Is it better for Tiger to play this year or in 2034, which is the year he'd be just about the same age as Jack and Tom Watson at their respective late-career Masters and Open runs. Play for the long haul. There could, and should, be plenty of Masters in your future. Don't compromise them just to play in this one.
