Tiger's Tall Tale

Believability and Tiger Woods no longer mix. So forgive me if I immediately wondered, what's really going on here, when the world's number-1 golfer withdrew from the final round of The Players Championship Sunday. Tiger, citing a neck injury, claimed, "I've been playing through it, I can't play through it anymore." Without undergoing an MRI as of yet, Doctor Woods also stated he might have a bulging disk.

Here's my diagnosis...Tiger has an acute case of adversititis. Never heard of it? Ok, so I made it up. What the term means is: the inability to deal with adversity. When he decided it was time to call it quits, Woods was 2-over through 6-holes, and so far behind, he would have needed a high powered telescope to see the top of the leaderboard. But rather than finish out the final round, he took the easy way out...he quit.

I don't doubt Tiger was in some pain. In fact, it's always dangerous to speculate on whether or not an athlete is really hurt. However, you can't convince me he would've still packed it in, had he been in the hunt. Woods fought through a badly injured knee en route to a 2008 U.S. Open Championship, downplaying the issue the entire time. Had he been in hot pursuit of Tim Clark Sunday, there's no way in hell Tiger bolts.

What's really hurting him is the reality that for the time being, he's a sideshow more than the main attraction. He can't deal with the fact that his game isn't where it used to be. Woods missed the cut at Quail Hollow, and was never a real factor at TPC Sawgrass. So under the heading of "adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it..." this was another revealing episode for Tiger, who was dressed in his traditional Sunday red shirt, but ended up waving the white flag.