Tiger Woods: Major comeback for golf star this time could be simply returning to a pain-free life
Returning to a glittering golf career may be relegated below ensuring he can play with his children again.
Wednesday 24 February 2021 18:43, UK
In the depths of his comeback challenge after the triple-pronged collapse of his personal life, his ailing back and his form on the course, Tiger Woods said his central ambition was to lead a pain-free life.
As he recovers in hospital, legs shattered by the force of a car crash he was lucky to survive, being pain free will again become his focus.
Surgeons who treated 45-year-old Woods say he suffered "comminuted open fractures affecting both the upper and lower portions of the tibia and fibula bones".
In layman's terms, that means both his shin and calf bones were splintered into multiple pieces and pierced the skin.
His foot and ankle are stabilised with a combination of screws and pins and the muscles surrounding the bones were cut to relieve swelling.
It's safe to say returning to a glittering golfing career will have been relegated below ensuring that he can play with his two children again.
Anish Mahajan, the chief medical officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where Tiger was operated on, did not comment on whether he would ever play golf again.
But of course, over the coming days and weeks there will be a clamour to discover the prognosis. This is no ordinary golfer. Woods is probably the greatest to ever wield a club.
He's a man who propelled an entire sport into a new commercial realm and, with a Thai mother and a black American father, challenged perceptions of race worldwide.
Understandably, fans want to see him back at the top and Tiger hardly needs a lesson in making a comeback.
In April 2019, he completed one of sport's most remarkable comebacks by winning the Masters.
Two years previously he had been in so much pain he could barely walk; a decade previously he had a very public marriage breakdown which revealed a series of his extramarital affairs, not to mention an addiction to painkiller drugs and sleeping pills.
Somehow he managed to wind back the clock and win at Augusta National once more so we know the mental fortitude is there in spades.
The question is whether the extensive injuries to his legs this time round will ever permit a similarly audacious return, given he has already undergone five back operations, the most recent of which was in December last year.
Bill Mallon, a renowned American surgeon and former professional golfer, delivered a very intriguing assessment of Tiger's potential comeback in a Twitter thread.
He wrote: "Tiger also had fractures in the ankle and foot, these could be more concerning than the tibia fractures, especially if the ankle fractures are directly involving the ankle joint.
"This could lead to arthritis down the road in the ankle joint and make walking and playing golf more difficult. The one good thing is that this involves Tiger's right leg and ankle which is not under the severe stresses that occur in the downswing, impact and follow through as the left ankle."
Woods can extract some hope from the story of another golfer, Ben Hogan, who returned from a devastating car accident in February 1949 to win the Masters twice more.
Hogan was told he might never walk again after being crushed by the impact of a Greyhound bus colliding with his car. He had dived across the passenger seat to save his wife from the impact.
Tiger and his handlers have an earned reputation for being quite secretive, so it is unlikely we will get regular and full information about the progress of his recovery.
But it may be that the major comeback this time is simply returning to a pain-free life again.