The hope endures long after the body is no longer willing. On Sunday, amid the pines and the bunkers of Augusta, Tiger Woods came to tee off for the final round of a tournament that he has won five times. Only Jack Nicklaus has won The Masters on more occasions, but as the most famous golfer in history dragged his stiff, aching frame to bogey after bogey after bogey out on the Georgian greens, the uncomfortable truth limped along in his wake; a sixth jacket of that colour now feels like a distinct impossibility.
Woods – 48 years old and hobbled by the residue of five microdiscectomies on his back, multiple knee surgeries, and a subtalar fusion in his ankle – finished the weekend dead last from those who made the 36-hole cut, a mammoth 16 shots over par. The man himself still speaks openly about his belief that, if the stars somehow align, he has one more wondrous moment left in him. The unwavering glare of common sense dictates otherwise.
The hope endures long after the body is no longer willing. On Sunday, amid the pines and the bunkers of Augusta, Tiger Woods came to tee off for the final round of a tournament that he has won five times. Only Jack Nicklaus has won The Masters on more occasions, but as the most famous golfer in history dragged his stiff, aching frame to bogey after bogey after bogey out on the Georgian greens, the uncomfortable truth limped along in his wake; a sixth jacket of that colour now feels like a distinct impossibility.
Woods – 48 years old and hobbled by the residue of five microdiscectomies on his back, multiple knee surgeries, and a subtalar fusion in his ankle – finished the weekend dead last from those who made the 36-hole cut, a mammoth 16 shots over par. The man himself still speaks openly about his belief that, if the stars somehow align, he has one more wondrous moment left in him. The unwavering glare of common sense dictates otherwise.
