With Tiger Woods' astonishing withdrawal from The 2011 Players Championship, could Woods' departure from golf be close at hand?
The Twitter world was all abuzz today after Tiger Woods hobbled off the exacting TPC Sawgrass golf course playing a six-over 42 through nine holes. On May 5th Tiger Woods' opted out of the Wells Fargo but, in a Terminator-esque video statement declared , "I'll be ready!" for the 2011 U.S. Open.
Should Woods have decided in advance to pull out of The Players Championship focusing his sights on the Open?
Photo Credit: Tiger Woods, 2011 Players Championship
In 2010, Tiger withdrew from the Players Championship before the final nine holes on Sunday declaring a sore neck in spite of a respectable three-round tally of 70, 71, 71. Giving Woods the benefit of the doubt, even with a bum knee Woods managed to win against Rocco Mediate in the final round of the 2008 U.S. Open.
Is Woods deciding to take a hypochondriac approach to golf, bailing out of regular-season events in order to focus on the Majors? The desire to overtake Jack Nicklaus is strong and, with only about a month to the U.S. Open, nursing Tiger Woods' wounds should surely take presedence.
Tiger said he felt pain from the opening shot, “The knee acted up, and then the Achilles’ followed after that, and then the calf started cramping up,” adding "I'm having a hard time walking."
One unfortunate bi-product of his hasty exit from the Players is that it distracts from the Championship. More people will talk about Tiger Woods this weekend than about the great golf to be played.
Although Tiger Woods certainly was in no way ready to play golf at the Players Championship this week, could it be, as @sports_business recently declared on Twitter, "Years from now, we will just look back at this and call it Elin's curse...right?"
Let the Twitter barrage begin!
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