Real shame. Whatever you think of him now, the guy is pure box office and I'd love to see him back to his best. Majors are never quite the same without TW, even if its a case of getting some masochistic enjoyment from his latest disaster.
It is a massive shame - I'd love to see one epic neck-and-neck, miles-ahead-of-the-pack battle for a major between Woods & McIlroy before the baton is really passed to the 'next generation'. Whoever won it, it would be remembered for generations. Guess it's never going to happen.
A great shame he's not going to play but with the undulating fairways of St George's he was never going to play there with an injury. Watched him there in 2003 and he struggled a bit, especially on the first hole. He may never play in the South of England again as The Open wont be back here for 10 years or so.
Had the pleasure of watching him close up when he romped home in the 2005 Open at St Andrews when he was at his best and he was awe inspiring. Close up he was a superb athlete and he must have had brilliant concentration techniques given everything else he had going on at the time Don't think we'll see him play like that again and we wont see anyone dominating like he did for a long long time.
Im going on Tueday to the practise day, i go to gold a fair bit, but find the practise days better as ya get to meet and chat to the golfers, and its not a mass scrum on every green.
IMO tiger will be back and i still think he will win another major, he just needs to get his game right, if ya head ant 100% on it then ya ant going to win, bit like Garcia and his putting really.
1. It's THE Open, not the British Open. We invented the game FFS.
2. I'm fed up of the "Woods pulls out of Major" stories every 3 months. It would be a lot better if he made a statement saying he's going to shut the f*** up until he IS ready to compete again.