Tiger Woods was on top of the golfing world when the U.S. Open last visited Oakmont in 2007.
On Thursday, when the tournament returns to Oakmont for a record ninth time, Woods won’t be there. At 40, his own record-setting days seem to be over.
Between these two U.S. Opens at Oakmont, Woods, the enigmatic former No. 1 player in the world, has gone through a downward spiral, both physical and psychological, confounding the golf and sports media realms ever since.
“We would have loved to see Tiger come. Everyone in the world would have loved to see Tiger come,” Bob Ford, the outgoing head professional at Oakmont, said before Woods formally withdrew from the tournament.
Woods registered for the U.S. Open in April but last week announced he would not play at Oakmont.
“While I continue to work hard on getting healthy, I am not physically ready to play in this year’s U.S. Open and the Quicken Loans National,” he said in a statement.
In May, at a media event to promote his foundation’s tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., Woods took three wedge shots, aiming for the 10th green about 100 yards away. All three plopped into the water, a symbol of his physical decline after two back surgeries last year.
His emotional state is another matter, and it remains to be seen whether he can rebuild the psychological fortitude that helped him win 14 major championships in 11 years.
Woods, who has not won a major since 2008 or competed in a tournament since August, recently said he may never play golf again. And yet he still sends ripples through the sport, even with a mere announcement he won’t play at Oakmont this week.
People are still talking about him, perhaps to the chagrin of the golfing world, which would like to move on and embrace the sport’s current crop of young stars, especially Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy.
“The game is always evolving,” said Fox Sports on-course reporter Curtis Strange, who won back-to-back U.S. Opens. “It evolved 20 years ago when Tiger came out and we had the most visible athlete on the planet playing our game — we were lucky. Now it has evolved into three, four or five guys that have great personalities, are honest, are fun, and that’s good.”
“Let’s just say this: There is no ‘next Tiger.’ Just like there really is no ‘next Jack [Nicklaus],’” said Paul Azinger, winner of the 1993 PGA Championship and Fox Sports lead golf analyst. “There is what we have. And what we have is great. These guys are amazing players.”
The only thing as unexpected as Woods’ fall was his quick rise. He won his first major, the 1997 Masters, at the age of 21. A handsome, muscular athlete and a person of color, he quickly became the most popular and accomplished player in a sport long dominated by white men.
His success spurred interest in golf as fans eagerly watched him chase Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships. As participation in golf has stagnated in recent years, many in the sport have wondered whether Woods’ decline is partially to blame.
Guarded and serious, he exuded an air of mystery that perhaps made him all the more intriguing to fans.
“As good as Tiger was, sometimes he wasn’t fun and entertaining and all of the above,” Strange said. “He was more serious and more business and more private.”
In 2007, Woods’ Oakmont appearances became events unto themselves. In April, two months before the U.S. Open, he tried out the course for the first time.
“He played so beautifully, and not a lot of members got to see him play,” Ford said. “But the buzz was pretty exciting. And he spent the night here in the Pro’s Cottage and pretty much endeared himself to the staff, and we were all pretty anxious for his return to the Open.”
Going into the final round, he was in second place, one stroke behind then-leader Aaron Baddeley. “The aura around Tiger and his physique and the shirt he had on that day — he looked like a linebacker — was very intimidating to the other players,” Ford said.
Woods tied with Jim Furyk for second place, one stroke behind Angel Cabrera.
“It was dramatic having him on the property and having him play that week,” Ford said.
His 14th major title would come at the 2008 U.S. Open, when Woods beat Greensburg native Rocco Mediate in a playoff, despite a seriously injured left knee that would require surgery only eight days later.
Yet underneath his success, many of the forces that would lead to his decline were already in motion, writer Wright Thompson documented in a recent profile in ESPN The Magazine.
The death in 2006 of Woods’ father, Earl, a Vietnam veteran who had a profound influence on and complicated relationship with his son, set off self-destructive behavior in the younger Woods.
In the years since his father died, Thompson wrote, Mr. Woods became increasingly fixated with the military, speaking in military jargon, skydiving with Navy SEALs, testing out weapons at a training facility near San Diego and engaging in punishing exercises, such as running in combat boots, with the apparent goal of joining the Navy.
A toxic combination — Woods’ mixed feelings toward his own fame, Earl’s death and the golfer’s personal shortcomings — would ultimately result in the most public and shocking revelations of his career: that he was engaged in at least a dozen affairs, replicating behavior he despised in his own father.
In 2009, Woods’ then-wife, Elin Nordegren, learned about his affair with Rachel Uchitel, and Woods crashed his Cadillac into a fire hydrant and a tree by their home in Florida. Several media outlets reported that Nordegren chased him with a golf club.
In the immediate fallout, Woods lost several sponsors, took off more than a year from golf and entered into therapy for sex addiction. In 2010, he and Nordegren divorced.
Since the scandal broke, Woods has won some high-profile tournaments and even ascended to No. 1 in the world rankings at times. But the golfer has not won another major tournament, plagued by injuries and his own demons.
Still, the ongoing attention paid to Woods indicates golf fans would like to see him return to his former heights, holding a shred of hope that he might just make a comeback.
“If anybody could at this age and with all he’s been through,” Ford said, “it’s Tiger Woods.”
Elizabeth Bloom: ebloom@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1750 and Twitter: @BloomPG. Stephen J. Nesbitt contributed.
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