He could have spoiled the stats, had injuries stayed away from him. But currently, he is one of the most surgically operated sports personalities in the world...
Prediction in sports is tricky. Predicting about great sporting personalities is even trickier. Still, there are unmistakable signs that Father Time reveals about a player – however great he or she is – that point to an imminent permanent failure. Remember Sachin Tendulkar’s struggles against incoming deliveries towards the end of his career? Some very ordinary bowlers managed to get him out in his final IPL. Remember Maradona’s final years? He was more of a diving over-weight than a dribbling wizard.
LOSS OF WIZARDRY
Over the last couple of years, such signs are increasingly visible in the case of Tiger Woods. He was once the man tipped to win almost everything in Golf. He nearly did. He has won 14 major golf tournaments. The problem is that he won the last major in 2008 – the US Open. At that time, he was tipped to break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors. It was going to be a matter of routine for Woods. Even the seasoned golf pundits reckoned so. But Woods could not win another major because of a combination of factors – personal crises, dip in form, injuries and so on. At present, he is ranked outside the top 500.
The aura of Tiger Woods is such that golf fans would not believe that he is over the hill. They have seen him do incredible things on the golf course. With him, nothing is impossible in golf. They used to say. But we need a slight alteration in the sentence now: with him, nothing was impossible in golf once. He has become well and truly a spent force.
This is not to denigrate one of the greatest sporting icons of the last decade. He should get the respect due to him for his achievements. But there is no need to egg him on for a couple of more laborious years. Here are our reasons for why Woods will not win another major.
AGE
This story is from the July 2016 edition of Sports Plus.
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This story is from the July 2016 edition of Sports Plus.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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