Tiger Woods pulled out of the Farmer's Insurance Open last weekend thanks to what he called "deactivated glutes." It's actually a real thing, but that's neither here nor there. The real question is, after pulling out of his third tournament in his last nine is Tiger Woods all washed up? And if he is, what happens to all that Nike sponsorship money?
Ashley Mayo, senior editor at Golf Digest says he’s not dead yet! “Do I think Tiger will win another PGA Tour event? Yes, absolutely. Will he win another major? Maybe.”
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Woods’ last PGA tour win, his 79th, came back in August of 2013 at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational. He now sits three shy of the PGA Tour record held by Sam Snead. Mayo says patience both by Tiger and his fans is key.
“Certainly he’s a mess - physically and mentally and really it’s the mental game that he really has to revamp. There’s no denying that he doesn’t have it together...the best thing I think for him would be to just kind of take some time off and come back when he’s truly ready.”
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It’s been less than a year since Woods had surgery to repair a pinched nerve in his back. No one is quite sure how bad his back is currently but it was not an insignificant injury.
“The stubbornness that got him to world number one,” Mayo says, “is the stuborness that I think is getting in his way right now.”
Mayo also notes that Woods, who through his dominance was able to focus solely on his game, is now a bit more of a normal human with obligations like kids in school and a girlfriend whom he travels to watch compete. “He needs to get used to juggling real life with professional life.”
Then there's his sponsor, Nike (NKE), who infused him with some $55 million in cash last year. It was the smallest amount since 2000, so does this decrease in backing mean the athletic giant is backing away from Woods? “Nike stuck with Tiger through the whole 2009 scandal,” Mayo notes. “They will be with Tiger until his toes are up.”
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More important for the game of golf, though, is not Tiger’s return to brilliance or lack thereof, but a shift of focus onto the next crop of great players. Names like Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth are familiar to golf fans if not the general public. Mayo says Rickie and Jordan in particular have the “it” factor, they're just waiting on the wins. “They really need to start winning more,” Mayo says. “That’s the special kind of combo that Tiger brought that is almost priceless. He had that charisma and that ‘it’ factor.”