The questions come less often, largely because the story is getting old. Or maybe it’s just that no one really believes it, even Tiger Woods himself.
The downfall of the greatest player of his time can be measured in any number of ways, whether it’s his current ranking of 195th in the world or the 85 Woods shot just a few weeks ago in a Memorial tournament he has won five times.
One of the most telling, though, may have come on Tuesday from the youngest player in the US Open, a 15-year-old named Cole Hammer, who said his first memory of watching golf on television was watching Woods pump his fist after forcing a playoff he would eventually win at Torrey Pines.
It’s been seven long years since Woods won that Open, and now even the bookies in las Vegas can’t make the odds long enough on his chances of winning this one. He’s a 50-1 pick, and the bettors who once put money on him to win every tournament now look elsewhere.
Woods still moves the popularity needle, even if he no longer moves with the confidence of a player who once expected to win every time he teed it up.
What has changed is we watch him not to win, but to see when he crashes. And on a golf course that features trains rumbling through on a regular basis, Woods is a train wreck waiting to happen.
He talked on Tuesday about making progress, said he was getting his game into shape to win the 15th major of his career. He reminded reporters that he’s won three US Opens, as if that should be enough to automatically elevate him to contender status.
But progress for Woods these days is no longer measured by getting closer to where he once was. It’s trying to get farther away from where he is — a player who still can’t figure out how to do the fundamental things on the golf course right.
Even more startling is that since returning from a layoff to fix his chipping woes, Woods has finished a collective 57 shots behind the winner in the three tournaments he has played.