In the grand traditions of phrases that leave the man on the street scratching his head like Stan Laurel trying to work out which wire he should cut on a ticking time bomb, Tiger Woods's declaration that he couldn't "activate my glutes" was up there with the bamboozling moment the term "quantitative easing" was first thrust into the public domain.

Given the fact that he's spent most of the past few months forlornly sitting on a buggy after a series of withdrawals from a variety of events, it's hardly surprising that the muscles in his rear end had gone into de-activation, hibernation or whatever you want to call it.

After his latest premature departure on Thursday night, during an increasingly torrid opening round in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, the backside continues to fall out of the crumbling Woods empire.

Is he finished? In the fevered, knee-jerk aftermath of this latest dispiriting chapter in an increasingly sad Tiger tale, it would be easy to just stick a fork in him and say he's done but even the most calm and reasoned minds must be now moving to this mournful conclusion following another ragged display punctuated by further, debilitating back pain.

As he twiddled his thumbs during a fog delay, Woods suggested that the hanging about and general lack of activity did little to aid the increasingly fragile cranks and pulleys that operate his ailing body. "Everything started deactivating," said Woods of this monumental malfunction. There were times during his captivating, all-conquering pomp when you half expected Woods to unclip his face and reveal a bewildering array of circuits boards, tangled wires and flashing LEDS, such was his ruthless, formidable, machine-like majesty. The 39-year-old is human, after all.

Blighted by pain and hampered by a worrying onset of what many believe are the chipping 'yips', Woods, both physically and mentally, appears a mangled mess. For genuine golf fans, and sports fans in general, it is a sombre, uncomfortable sight; an astonishing talent and arguably the greatest golfer ever, thrashing, duffing and hirpling his way around the course while being subjected to almost freak show levels of voyeurism and remorseless scrutiny. It's like watching a bloated Elvis mumble and bumble his way through a series of crass Vegas ballads. Nobody would have wanted it to reach this stage, not least the proud Woods himself. The fact that this latest calamity happened at Torrey Pines, one of Tiger's great hunting grounds and the scene of the remarkable US Open win of 2008 that was achieved with a shattered knee and leg, only added to the feeling of wretchedness. Seven years ago, he made the Six Million Dollar man look decrepit with that superhuman effort to record his last major win but at Torrey Pines in 2015, the ravages of time and of a career spent pushing himself to the absolute limits and beyond produced only anguish, questions and uncertainty. As Rory McIlroy disappears off into the distance at the forefront of world golf, and an up-and-coming generation like Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, Billy Horschel, Rickie Fowler and Brooks Koepka give the American scene plenty of youthful exuberance, Woods is left muddling on in the margins of a game he once held a tyrannical rule over. Becoming a bit-part player, with little hope of competing against the best, is a prospect that will hurt Woods more than a gammy back.

"I feel he's as confused as he's ever been in his career and he's changed coaches along the way," said Paul Azinger, the former US Ryder Cup captain. "In the quest to get better, Tiger's actually gotten worse. Now he's confused and I think that at this point in his career, it's not really what he's accomplished that matters, but what he can overcome. And he's got a lot to overcome both physically and mentally."

Given his doggedness, his determination and his down-right single mindedness, Woods will battle on in this on-going quest to overcome but, on the current evidence, there appears to be little light at the end of the tunnel. The end of the road may be more appropriate?