Time waits for no man. They used to say that life begins at 40 but when you were all young and thrusting and in your 20s you used to worry about turning 30 before finally hitting 40 and wishing you’d spent less time working yourself into a fankle about turning 30 in the first instance. For Tiger Woods, the clock is ticking down to that 40th birthday later this month but, physically, it will be a fairly old 40. What did we say about time again? Those golfing years continue to catch up on him. The ravages of the ageing process on this formidable athlete, who pushed the boundaries to the absolute limit and beyond, are now curling and coiling round him like the tentacles of a withering embrace. The body is not quite a temple anymore, rather a creaking, shoogling structure that resembles a rickety outhouse in a stiff breeze.
Already this week, an injury-stricken Woods has delivered the kind of frank, downbeat assessments about his future that used to be the reserve of that auld yin in Dad’s Army. We’re doomed? Not quite, but there has been an acceptance where once there was defiance; resignation instead of intention.
Perhaps fittingly, when we are talking about the passing of time, Woods opened up to Time Magazine in a wide-ranging, engaging blether that discussed his past, his present and, pertinently, his future.
"I don't want it to happen,” he said, when asked about the prospect of enforced retirement. “Without a doubt I do not. With all my heart, I do not want to stop playing golf. But if it does, it does. I've reconciled myself to it.”
A born champion and groomed to be a winner from the moment he could waddle about and swing a cut down club, the game that he dominated and held in a tyrannical double nelson during his glory-laden pomp has been tormenting him at every turn of this excruciating slither into the margins.
“I can’t remember the last time I watched golf, I can’t stand it,” added Woods. “Unless one of my friends has a chance to win, then I like watching it. I watched Jason [Day] win the PGA. But it was on mute.” He continues to suffer in silence, it seems.
For a furiously driven, single-minded competitor, the reassurance of an unrivalled competitive instinct and an unwavering mental resolve was something that was forged at an early age. His recollections of golf in those carefree times of yore when he was a nipper underlined that determination, not just to succeed but to pummel his opponents into submission. “I wanted to know that I beat everyone in this field, and I wanted them to know that they got their butt kicked,” he said. “That to me was the absolute pure pleasure of competing. When I first started playing, in the nine-and-under, and the 11-and-under, I would still want to kick your butt. That never changed. By the time I was 11 years old, I had already won 113 tournaments. I peaked at 11, to be honest with you. I went 36 and 0 that year, never lost a tournament. And I probably had the cutest girlfriend in all of sixth grade. And I had straight As. No A-minuses. They were all perfect As. I’ve been trying to get back to that since.”
The straight A student with the girl on his arm? Life was good. It got better as his sporting life developed, of course. The majors poured in, as did the money but then the cracks began to appear. His infamous clatter into that Florida fire hydrant back in 2009 opened the biggest can of worms since Goliath went fishing as all Woods’s infidelities were laid bare. Divorce and humiliation followed but there is now peace. “She is one of my best friends,” is how he describes his relationship with his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren.
"I've taken the initiative with the kids and told them up front, 'Guys, the reason why we don't live under the same roof, Mommy and Daddy, is because Daddy made some mistakes',” said Woods, who admitted that, during this period of reflection, he remains “shocked” by the number of titles he has won.
"I just want them to understand before they get to Internet age and they log on to something or have their friends tell them something. I want it to come from me so that when they come of age, I'll just tell them the real story."
Those children, Sam and Charlie, are now his everything. Golf is no longer the be-all and end-all where it was once all consuming.
"It's more important for me to be with my kids,” said Woods. “Now, if I can do both (golf and family life), that is an ideal world. If I can only do one, it wouldn't be golf.”
Woods concedes that his efforts to return to competitive action after his various surgeries on his knee and back have “made injuries worse” as time marches on. “I don’t need another surgery,” he said. “Seven’s enough. Four knees, three backs, that’s enough. I’ve paid the price.”
The ultimate price would be his golfing career. As ever with Woods, though, there is a twist in the Tiger tale. Asked if he can still return to the top he said, “absolutely.”
Time waits for no man … but old habits die hard.
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