The ageing process doesn’t come itself. A hirple here, a twinge there, a general loosening goodness knows where? You know you have reached a certain vintage when your back goes out more than you do. Tiger Woods will probably testify to that. His botherations with said part of the anatomy have been well-documented. Indeed, if you took all the thousands of words written about his various aches and pains and compiled them into a meaty volume, you’d probably jigger your own back trying to lift the thing up to read.

It will be birthday cards that Tiger will be reading on Wednesday as this golfing great turns 40. Of course, in this Royal & Ancient game, the big 4 0 is no age at all. Old Tom Morris was still playing in the Open at the sprightly age of 76 back in ye day. Golf has changed a wee bit since the bunneted Morris ruled the roost. Things have changed since Woods was in his pomp too. As a younger, fitter generation assume command of the world order, Tiger will go into the new year at No 416 on the global order. That’s the least of his concerns, though. Simply being able to play the game again remains the big issue as his variety of surgical pokes, prods and pinches continue to take a heavy toll on an increasingly fragile frame that seems to be as shoogly as Shakin’ Stevens operating a pneumatic drill.

Just a few weeks ago, Woods was as downbeat as he has ever been as he delivered a grim prognosis about his future by saying that there was “no light at the end of the tunnel.” Just before Christmas, however, Woods was full of yuletide optimism. “Where do I see myself in the next five to 10 years?” he said. “I am still playing golf at the highest level and winning tournaments and major championships."

Given that Woods managed to win the US Open of 2008 – the last of his 14 major titles – despite playing with two stress fractures in his leg and a busted anterior cruciate ligament, there has always been a reluctance to write him off completely. Yet, even his most ardent followers have developed an acceptance that it may finally be over while the milestone of 40 is merely another reminder that he is now on the back-nine of his career.

We can only wonder what the future will hold for Woods but we will always look back in wonder at his achievements during those glory-laden years when he held the global game in a tyrannical grip and anything and everything seemed possible.

Between the 1999 US PGA Championship and the 2002 US Open, Woods won seven of the 11 majors he contested, a shimmering series of successes which included the ‘Tiger Slam’ of US Open, Open Championship and US PGA in 2000 and the 2001 Masters.

In 1930, the great Bobby Jones ‘stormed the impregnable quadrilateral of golf’ when he won all the majors that were available in the same calendar year – the British and US Amateur Championships were classed as grand slam events then – but Woods’s achievement of holding all four majors at the same time remains unprecedented in the modern era.

This was Tiger’s era. And what an era it was. His imperious march to victory in that US Open of 2000 illuminated his majesty. On a Pebble Beach course that was one of his happy hunting grounds, Woods cantered to a 15-stroke triumph, the biggest margin of victory in any major championship and one that eclipsed the 13-shot win Old Tom Morris claimed in the 1862 Open.

In this game for all the ages, it really is a case of age being just a number. Racking up the years is by no means a barrier to success and plenty of players have enjoyed the roaring forties. Jack Nicklaus, whose haul of 18 majors was the record everybody thought Woods would surpass, didn’t win anything as a 39-year-old in 1979 but bounced back strongly the following year and won both the US Open and the US PGA Championship as a flourishing 40-year-old. At the age of 46, Nicklaus would claim the 18th and final major of his career at the 1986 Masters.

Of course, Nicklaus, and those others who have conquered while climbing the brae on the age front, didn’t suffer anything like the number of injuries Woods has endured and they certainly didn’t have seven major operations. Mind you, Fuzzy Zoeller had three surgeries on his back and each time he came back to be competitive. Time can be a great healer but time was one thing Woods wouldn’t give himself during his various rehabilitations as he tried to force his recovery. He would, as he has admitted, pay a hefty price. A year older and a year wiser, it appears that Woods is now prepared to let the healing process take time. Perhaps the future is not as bleak as many have portrayed it? As they say, life begins at 40.