Tiger withdraws with back pain

such a shame

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welp

glutes misfiring

One back surgery too many I guess. Too bad. So much more fun when Tiger is playing. I guess the last comeback was a bonus when you think about it.

Although the eternal optimist in me thinks "back spasms" doesn't necessarily equal "he's done".

Maybe its time to admit he is just to old and all the surgeries and PED's have caught up to him
He will always be the greatest golfer of his era and did the most to grow the game and the 2nd greatest golfer of all time. The tour is better with a competitive Tiger and I hope im wrong

the two local players i know who know the most about golf. both scratch or better players. the say...

tiger put on way too much muscle and lost his lithe body and smooth swing.. i tend to agree. his swing looks very mechanical and muscled now.

and i think once you put on alot of muscle it's always there to a certain degree..... i put on alot of muscle for a few years and i find it barely requires much maintainence at all for 70% of it remain. obviously if competing at body building or some sort of strength athletics then that's alot of muscle you've lost. but not for every day life.

I see this theory all the time but I don't see how being in shape hurts your golf swing. Tiger's not musclebound like a bodybuilder, he's just fit. I agree his swing looks more mechanical bit I think that has been a result of injury, or simply Tiger becoming too enamoured with the Scott Foley type swing.

Thing is, his swing in December looked great. I don't think he's put on tons of muscle since then and totally ruined his swing because of that.

Not that I've got a good explanation of where his December-swing went, but I doubt musclegain has anything to do with it.

This is the truth and very similar to a post I wrote in December. I didn't like his swing back then either and said so. This swinging too hard issue is HUGE. No one can do that at 40 and last. Smooth is the ticket.

Yep, if he can just get back that sweet swing that got him 15th of 17 in his own tourney and only 14 shots out, he will be fine.

Results oriented much?

If you don't see the difference between how his swing looked in Dec. and how it has looked in his two tournaments since, then... I don't even.

Sometimes I think, wow flying to Dubai to play back to back weeks seems rough for a guy with a bad back. Then I figure, well he has the best doctors in the world. Then he has back spasms... could have saw that one coming.

That whole 1 exhibition tourney data set was awesome stuff Fer Sure.

Did you get any takers?

The best doctors in the world would strongly advise against traveling 17 hours to put your body through an athletic, stressful event. The most medicine can do is masquerade pain with pain drugs. So you can probably get through 4 rounds on oxycodone. It messes with your brain and can be addictive. It fixes nothing. Over half of surgeries appear to make things worse. The best outcomes I have seen are gaining the ability to manage back pain. I have never seen it go away long-term. Hitting a club 100mph into the ground over and over is crazy. Recipe to end up in a wheelchair. There isn't a best doctor or any doctor that can do anything at that point.

There is a ton of back management in golf. Fred Couples has had a tremendous second half of his career by managing his back.

That would have been my first stop if I was Tiger Woods. Put together a schedule that prepares you for the majors while putting the minimal amount of stress on your back.

It looked to me like he put together a schedule that took more into account what would be best for his business interests rather than his back. But once again I don't know what he has access to and I know that I would feel more confident with a trainer and massage therapist 24 hours a day.

I get that golf is bad for your back. I've had a bunch of doctors tell me that over the years. I also know that I'm much more likely to throw my back out reaching for a toy the kids dropped than I am swinging a golf club.

you mean the justin rose type swing? yea who wants that? jk.

though i do agree with ur first point that tiger is not muscle bound like a bodybuilder, maybe he works out with heavy weights too much and not enough exercises promoting flexibility and joint strength. although i find it hard to believe with all the resources he has at his disposal.

but yea it seems like he makes decisions that would fly in the face of rational expert opinion.(another example being what other posters mentioned-extra long flight back to back weeks.) he needs to reinvent himself and his game if he wants to have a chance but he seems to keep trying to return to the tiger of old.

imvh&(amatuer-armchairqbing-webmd-psychiatric-homeschooled-degree)opinion, its more mental than anything that is probably contributing to his continued deteriorating back and therefore game. not the back deteriorating his game n therefore mental.

in other words, he needs to chk his ego n pride at the door and do some serious soul searchin to see if he wants to put himself through a complete self re-evaluation. this whole impatient trait he keeps referencing when talkn about rehab needs to stop. it's getting pretty embarrassing at this point.

its like he waits for the dr. to give a clean bill of health and then he wants to all ham way too soon. i mean playing a full schedule is great from a fans perspective but i cant see how thats healthy for a guy coming off 3 back surgeries.

Couples has done well. His swing seems smoother and does not have the violent impact. He limits his events and practice. Tiger appears more mechanical and practices probably much more. Has a much more violent swing. His back issues may not be the same. Couples has managed his golf schedule well. Tiger seems all over the place.

I've been laughed at a lot on this forum for advocating against the kind of workouts that Tiger did. I think Jason Day and Rory are probably regretting transforming their physiques the way they did. There's no scientific evidence that getting jacked helps your golf game, and there's only reason to believe it shortens ones career. Flexibility might be a hard thing to quantify. I can kick my leg above my head, touch my palms to the floor, but I would never describe myself as flexible. The reason I can do those things is because I've overcome the pain. Sure, I have a decent range of motion, but it hurt quite a bit to get there, and it still hurts a bit to touch my toes, etc.

I also got the yips. At the time I was making great progress with my game, I was also committed to getting into good shape. The strength in my game was getting up and down, I loved the short game. Then one day, I yipped it at a routine chip.. Thought, 'wtf was that?' and I could never golf seriously again. Now, instead of long distance running, I run sprints, and spend a lot of time stretching afterwards. The yips aren't nearly as bad, but I'll never be able to play golf seriously.

Of course, I'm just some dude posting on the internet. But, this NYT article has a lot of good points and interesting ideas that back up what I'm saying...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/sp...-muscular.html

Couples has had a ton of back problems even with his silky smooth swing. This is one of the reasons I think the criticism that Tiger's swing is "too hard" or "too violent" is off base. They all swing hard. The golf swing is hard on the back, and once you've had a back injury you're predisposed to more. It's not something Tiger could have fixed by "swinging less violently", whatever that even means.

Seve had a lot of back issues too and I don't think he ever bulked up or swung too violently.

i would say tw is pretty bulky. obviously not a body builder but maybe like an nfl OLB or SS...

and tw getting bulky seems to me that it would affect his coordination and muscle memory alot.

obviously he should never have left butch harman. and i don't buy the whole "TW couldn't stay with butch because of his knee"... that strikes me as rationalization.

someone needs to post a TW "before and after photo" vis a vis muscle. i'd say it's a huge difference.

Tiger, I believe, practices a lot more than the others. I think Lee Trevino stopped going to the range completely. I don't think Fred Couples practices often.

You can get away with 30 hard swings per round with a bad back. Doing 300 times a day is a whole different matter.

I recall reading that David Duval was desperately trying to change his swing that one day his hands were bleeding and he had to withdraw from a tournament.

He obviously flew to Dubai for money instead of playing in Arizona. No doctor in the world would recommend that course of action. A business manager? Of course he should go.

http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/featu...t-back-surgery
***Of the 56 million Americans who have back pain, only 5 percent need surgery.***

Did I hear Tiger Woods had back surgery 3 times? He might as well get 30 surgeries. I think those surgeries are more likely to make things worse than better. I hear more "failed" surgeries than anything. The surgeon didn't fail. It just a surgery that has terrible outcomes. It is for the most desperate people in the world who have tried everything else and are giving it a lot shot. And it still fails most of the time.

The best chance he has is to relax and load himself up with pain drugs to make it through the rounds. Play 12-15 events a year like Jack Nicklaus did with low expectations. Stop focusing on getting back to the top of golf because the more he tries, the worse it will be.