Tiger Woods, who hasn't played since May, duly dropped out of the World's top 20 for the first time in over 14 years today, and is now on the very slippery slope where unless he gets a few good finishes in before Christmas, will quickly drop out of the top 50.
His ranking is admittedly something of an irrelevance, in a way, because he's earned a lifetime exemption from qualifying for any regular PGA Tour event he wants to enter by dint of his career victories (the exemption is for having won over 20, and he's won about 60), and similarly as a former champion has lifetime exemptions from qualifying for the Masters, Open Championship and PGA championship (his US Open 'former champion' exemption will run out in 2019). So basically Tiger can stroll up to any event he likes and demand to play, even if he takes five years off. However, the longer he goes without getting back into the groove of playing competitive golf, let alone winning golf, I think could take so much off him, and make it so hard to get back, that he maybe never will.
We maybe are seeing the premature end of one of the most meteoric and successful sporting careers in history. The real irony, too, being that the all-time career record he was chasing - the 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus - was achieved by a man who won the last 4 of those after his 38th birthday, while Woods has won 14 so far and is only 35 now.
His ranking is admittedly something of an irrelevance, in a way, because he's earned a lifetime exemption from qualifying for any regular PGA Tour event he wants to enter by dint of his career victories (the exemption is for having won over 20, and he's won about 60), and similarly as a former champion has lifetime exemptions from qualifying for the Masters, Open Championship and PGA championship (his US Open 'former champion' exemption will run out in 2019). So basically Tiger can stroll up to any event he likes and demand to play, even if he takes five years off. However, the longer he goes without getting back into the groove of playing competitive golf, let alone winning golf, I think could take so much off him, and make it so hard to get back, that he maybe never will.
We maybe are seeing the premature end of one of the most meteoric and successful sporting careers in history. The real irony, too, being that the all-time career record he was chasing - the 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus - was achieved by a man who won the last 4 of those after his 38th birthday, while Woods has won 14 so far and is only 35 now.
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