[funkdoctorspock]

If you want to make a regular PGA Tour or Golf Thread, by all means knock yourself out.

But Eldrick "Tiger" Woods on these forums gets his own thread.

Absolute LEGEND and his tale is still being told.

Just off knee surgery, he comes to Torrey Pines, a tournament which he won as a junior amateur and 5 other tournament wins there and what does he do? Wins again through a 19 hole playoff.

He definitely looked rusty. He definitely was favouring his knee at times. But his mental approach to the game was as sharp as ever.

Outstanding win. I always ranked his '97 win at the Masters and his '00 US Open wins as the greatest of the 13, prior to this latest win. Would definitely rank todays win as top 3.

Way to go Tiger!!!

[RobsonLegend]

14 down, 5 to go for the record. Attaboy, Tiger.



Sheer poetry in motion. And the fact that he was able to basically alter his swing mid-round Saturday and come up with what he did? Stunning. Absolutely stunning.



The guy's already the greatest. Don't anyone dare doubt that. Sure, he can be a little wild off the tee (a problem he's always had, but especially this weekend), but when you have that kind of power, that shotmaking ability, and that putting touch, so what? How many professional athletes do you know who could rip apart their entire game (circa 2001-2002) and start from the ground up and emerge better than ever?

He either runs away with it, or he makes everyone around him better. That's why Tiger Woods is so good for the PGA. What a privilege for me and the rest of us to watch him in his absolute prime. And to think he's barely hitting the age when most golfers really start to excel.

The best part of it, for those who have watched him from day one ("Hello World") to that terrible first finish in his first tournament after all the hype to blowing away the entire field at Augusta '97 ("A win for the ages" indeed. Thanks, Jim Nantz) to the Tiger Slam to today, is seeing him mature from the brash gung-ho almost-arrogant aloof kid to the media-friendly intense competitor who gets in a smile every now and then and is unafraid to show his emotions.



A day late from the ultimate tribute, but you know Earl's always going to be proud, Tiger. Well done. Keep it going.

[RobsonLegend]

So funky inspired me yesterday, and since I've been following Tiger for a while now, why not?

Tiger's Majors

1997 Masters
Course: Augusta National, Georgia
Score: -18, 270
Margin of victory: 12 strokes (Tom Kite)
Age: 21





1999 PGA Championship
Course: Medinah CC, Illinois
Score: -11, 277
Margin of victory: 1 stroke (Sergio Garcia)
Age: 23





2000 US Open
Course: Pebble Beach, California
Score: -12, 272
Margin of victory: 15 strokes (Ernie Els, Miguel Angel Jimenez)
Age: 24





2000 British Open
Course: Royal & Ancient, St. Andrew's, Scotland
Score: -19, 269
Margin of victory: 8 strokes (David Duval)
Age: 24





2000 PGA Championship
Course: Valhalla GC, Kentucky
Score: -18, 270
Margin of victory: 3-hole playoff (Bob May)
Age: 24





2001 Masters
Course: Augusta National, Georgia
Score: -16, 272
Margin of victory: 2 strokes (David Duval)
Age: 25





2002 Masters
Course: Augusta National, Georgia
Score: -12, 276
Margin of victory: 3 strokes (Retief Goosen)
Age: 26





2002 US Open
Course: Bethpage Black, New York
Score: -3, 277
Margin of victory: 3 strokes (Phil Mickelson)
Age: 26





2005 Masters
Course: Augusta National, Georgia
Score: -12, 276
Margin of victory: Playoff (Chris DiMarco)
Age: 29





2005 British Open
Course: Royal & Ancient, St. Andrews, Scotland
Score: -14, 274
Margin of victory: 5 strokes (Colin Montgomerie)
Age: 29





2006 British Open
Course: Royal Liverpool GC, Liverpool, England
Score: -18, 270
Margin of victory: 2 strokes (Chris DiMarco)
Age: 30





2006 PGA Championship
Course: Medinah CC, Illinois
Score: -18, 270
Margin of victory: 5 strokes (Shaun Micheel)
Age: 30





2007 PGA Championship
Course: Southern Hills CC, Oklahoma
Score: -8, 272
Margin of victory: 2 strokes (Woody Austin)
Age: 31





2008 US Open
Course: Torrey Pines, California
Score: -1, 283
Margin of victory: Playoff (Rocco Mediate)
Age: 32

[RobsonLegend]

Woods set to have season-ending knee surgery

Woods said on his Web site that he will have surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament. He also wrote that he needs time to rehabilitate a double stress fracture of his left tibia, which he said was discovered just before the Memorial Tournament in late May.

I've actually played competitive golf. Trying to take a full swing with a sprained ankle hurt like hell, and he had a double stress fracture? Holy crap. AND 10 tournament wins since hurting his ACL?

Tiger is not human.

[funkdoctorspock]

I read this breaking news when I got in and to read what his doctors and swing coach had to say about Tiger playing on despite his leg injury is just shocking.

He literally was playing on one leg. 2 stress fractures and a torn acl...

I'm glad he has decided to shut it down for the year. He definitely needs to make sure he overcomes these injuries and continues back at 100%.

The sad part if you are a golfer facing Tiger is... you can't beat him on one leg and less than 50% percent. What chance do you have when he's back to 100%?

Best of luck with the recovery!

I'm sure he'll be thinking of ways to improve his game as well as teach the lil one how to play too!

[Mark]

Woods surgery successful

Tiger Woods underwent surgery on Tuesday to repair a torn ligament in his left knee, an operation described as a success by his doctors.

Originally Posted by eurosport.yahoo.com

The American world number one decided last week to have a fourth operation on the same knee, just two days after playing through pain to win the US Open in San Diego.

"We were confident going into this surgery and I am pleased with the results," Dr. Thomas D. Rosenberg stated.

"There were no surprises during the procedure, and as we have said, with the proper rehabilitation and training, it is highly unlikely that Mr. Woods will have any long-term effects as it relates to his career."

Woods, 32, decided to shut down his 2008 campaign after clinching his 14th major title at the US Open eight days ago, winning a 19-hole playoff against compatriot Rocco Mediate.

It was his first tournament in two months since having surgery to clean out cartilage in the knee two days after the US Masters in April.

Woods outlined that he would have reconstructive surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament, which he tore 11 months ago after last year's Open at Carnoustie.

He also said he would require time off to rehabilitate a double stress fracture of his left tibia that was found last month and attributed to his intense rehabilitation and preparation for the US Open.

"It was important to me to have the surgery as soon as possible so that I could begin the rehabilitation process," Woods stated.

"I am very appreciative of Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Cooley and his staff's guidance and look forward to working with them through the necessary rehabilitation and training.

"I also wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes over the past week."

Woods initially had surgery on his left knee in 1994 to remove a benign tumour, followed by arthroscopic surgery in 2002.

"I look forward to working hard at my rehabilitation over the coming months and returning to the PGA Tour healthy next year."

Article Here!




Great news

[funkdoctorspock]

Here's an update on Tiger's recovery and the state of golf tv viewing since he has had surgery.

He has stated that he isn't going to be picking up a golf club until '09.

Physio at this time consists of stationary bike and I'm guessing stretching exercises.

Tiger: I won't swing a golf club until 2009

Tiger Woods won't swing a golf club again until 2009, and says he doesn't know when he'll be able to return to competitive golf. The world's No. 1 player had surgery to fix a torn ACL following his win at the U.S. Open in June.

"As far as swinging a club, that's not going to happen until next year. I just don't have a choice," Woods said Tuesday in a statement on tigerwoods.com. "We simply don't know what type of swelling there would be or if there would be any residual effects the next day once you start wheeling and dealing on the knee.

"Everyone's body reacts differently. I could putt right now, but I'm not going to do it. I don't know what the doctors are going to tell me about playing golf down the road. I'm taking it day-to-day, week-to-week. All I'm doing every day is looking forward to my next day," Woods said.

A 10-pounds thinner Woods — the result of not working out, he said — called into Scott Van Pelt's radio show on ESPN last week and said he was finally able to start riding an exercise bike again, training two or three sessions a day.

Woods's announcement that he won't swing a club again this year shouldn't come as a surprise. His focus has been returning for the 2009 Masters, and he has given no indication that he won't be ready for that. After his season-ending surgery in June, Woods's agent Mark Steinberg said, "There will be debate whether he rushed back for the U.S. Open. But I don't think there will be any debate that he rushes back from his next surgery. He won't need to. Augusta is in April. And if things go according to plan, he'll be able to play an event or two or three."

Contrary to what he told Van Pelt before the PGA Championship, Woods said he did end up watching some of the tournament and congratulated Padraig Harrington on his win.

"As a two-time defending PGA champion, it was a lot more frustrating not to be competing and that hurts the most," Woods said. "I stayed plenty busy with my rehab and watched some of the Olympics on television. I did arrange the menu for the Champions dinner, and it was a combo of American and Swedish food."

Woods said he missed "the fight" of competing on the PGA Tour, but added that he has a full plate of side projects, including his course designs in North Carolina and Dubai, his AT&T National tournament, his EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 video game and his new Gatorade sports drink. He also plans to be watching closely — from home — when the U.S. faces the Europeans at the Ryder Cup in September.

"I will definitely watch some of the Ryder Cup matches and will be pulling hard for the American team," Woods said. "I wish I could do more than root!"

Source

PGA proves it: Without Tiger, TV golf is in a tailspin

Cratering. Devastation. Decimation. Those are a few of the kinder terms to characterize the decline in the PGA Tour's most conspicuous indicators since Tiger Woods underwent season-ending knee surgery just a few days after his epic U.S. Open win in June. In the immediate wake of The Tiger Show at Torrey Pines, the Tour was riding a crest: Its prime-time rating and audience share for NBC's final-round telecast that Sunday (10.0/20) had been even higher than the figures for the competing NBA Finals Game 5 on ABC (9.0/16).

Since then, however, golf's TV ratings have fallen into the abyss. Despite Padraig Harrington's thrilling victory on Sunday at Oakland Hills, the overnight rating for the PGA Championship was 3.0, down 55% from last year's final round at Southern Hills — an event won by (surely you recall) Woods.

Such a figure bodes poorly for NBC's return to the Tour over Labor Day weekend for the second FedEx Cup playoff event, the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston in Norton, Mass. (CBS will telecast the first FedEx event, the Barclays Championship, which Woods did not play in last year.) The Deutsche Bank — which last year featured Woods's gripping Labor Day duel with eventual winner, Phil Mickelson — will be hard-pressed to approach '07's superb 3.4 final-round rating. Nor can NBC be optimistic about the other two FedEx events it carries, the BMW and the Tour Championship. With the possible exception of the Sept. 19-21 Ryder Cup (also on NBC), the Nielsens almost certainly will stay in the doldrums until Tiger's expected return in 2009.

Though ratings for post-U.S. Open Tour events this summer have been uniformly dismal, the most instructive comparisons are in the numbers for the final rounds of the four events in which Tiger played in '07. The three domestic events were down precipitously , with the AT&T Classic off 42% and the WGC-Brigestone lower by 39%. (Like the PGA, both were telecast by CBS.) This falloff is reminiscent of the decline in NBA ratings when Michael Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls after the 1998 playoffs. The British Open, on ABC, was down a more modest 11% from '07.

Domestic box office has taken a hit, too, no doubt affected not only by Tiger's absence but also by economic factors like the soaring price of gas. In July, the AT& T, Tiger's own tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., reported four-day attendance of 107,120, a drop of 32,269 from '07. For the WCC-Bridgestone at Akron's Firestone Country Club (which usually attracts 120,00 for four days) and the PGA at Oakland Hills, media reports indicated that crowds were smaller than in '07. At Firestone, according to AkronNewsNow.com, one man who lives near the course and offers $8 parking spots on his lawn said he usually parks 30 cars, but this year only had 19. (However, proving that there will always be an England, the brutal conditions at Royal Birkdale for the British Open didn't scare off the patrons: More than 200,000 defied the elements, the sixth-highest total in the 137 years the event has been contested.)

In the coming weeks, the FedEx Cup events will have the Herculean task of attracting fans to see if the current points leader, Kenny Perry, can seal the deal. Last week the Newark Star-Ledger reported that ticket sales for next week's Barclays (which this year has moved from Westchester Country Club to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.) are running ahead of last year's pace but that a sellout is not expected.

Of course, there's almost always money at the high end: Crain's Detroit Business reported a sellout for Oakland Hills' corporate hospitality packages ranging from $37,500 for a 10-person table to $500,00 for a corporate chalet.

Bucking the ratings trend, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the Golf Channel has experienced 5% ratings growth this year for tournaments that Tiger was absent from in both 2007 and '08. Maybe hardcore fans are looking for the stars of tomorrow. For TV's sake, one of them better be named Tiger.

Source

[RobsonLegend]

Originally Posted by funkdoctorspock

Physio at this time consists of stationary bike and I'm guessing stretching exercises.

And Elin. Don't forget Elin.