It’s an oft-stated truism that top sports stars “die” twice: the other “death” being when they can no longer live their chosen dream.
Having narrowly escaped the Grim Reaper this week, Tiger Woods now has an unwanted chunk of time to consider bringing his “other life” to a premature end.
It will be a tough decision for it has been a life in which he achieved a greatness only a handful of sportsmen have ever attained. And that’s if his battered body has not already made it.
In a hospital bed with a rod, screws and pins inserted in his lower right leg, he may just have found an unplayable lie.
Even with the near-miracles of modern surgery allied to a will of tungsten, he may no longer have the power to swing at anything like his former level, in which case the issue is purely academic.
For mere mortals, it already would have been after the grim news from the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in California spoke of “open fractures affecting the tibia and fibula bones” being “stabilised by inserting a rod into the tibia.”
All this coming so soon after a January back operation – his fifth – had only heightened fears that Tiger’s fragile physicality would give way long before he lost the desire.
Indeed, for a game that is essentially a walk in the park, Tiger, now 45, has sustained more injuries than Liverpool’s footballers have this season!
But then he is the comeback king. And the one sliver of hope in that sobering bulletin is that it’s the right leg that has borne the brunt of the damage, his fragile left, on which he’s had knee surgery, having been spared.
And it was on that left leg – broken in two places at the time – that he won the US Open in 2008.
But, as golf fans have not been slow to point out, there is an even greater precedent for surviving a car crash by another legend of the game back in 1949.
If you thought Tiger’s own comeback from multiple surgeries, multiple scandals and apparent oblivion was enough for an epic movie, it’s a wonder Hollywood didn’t reject Ben Hogan’s story as being too far-fetched.
Whereas Tiger’s crash was a “single vehicle rollover” – as the Los Angeles police put it – Hogan’s was a head-on with a speeding Greyhound bus.
The cops thought he was dead, but he rallied and, after a 90-minute wait for an ambulance, he spent six weeks in hospital.
He suffered a fractured left collarbone, a double fracture of his pelvis, a broken ankle, and a chipped rib. Blood clots in his leg and lung required several blood transfusions and abdominal surgery.
He was told he would never play golf again.
But Hogan did more than play – he won six more Majors, starting with the 1950 US Open – just 16 months after the crash. After winning three in 1953, New York gave him a tickertape parade and Hollywood did him proud in a film called ‘Follow the Sun’.
At 36, Hogan was almost a decade younger than Tiger, who already has a fused back and untold damage to his psyche. On the other hand, 72 years is an awful long time in medicine and Tiger has a similar stubbornness about giving up.
He has been told it could be between nine months and two years to recover which would make him older than Jack Nicklaus when he won the Masters aged 46, the oldest ever winner of a Major.
Hogan’s has to be the greatest comeback since Biblical times and Tiger, who loves a challenge, might just see it as an inspiration. As Barack Obama said: “Never write him off.”
If beating Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 Majors now does look beyond him, he has already equalled Sam Snead’s record of 82 PGA Tour victories. Beating that would not compare to winning another Major but after this, it might do.
The world – and golf in particular – certainly wants him back, but he owes us nothing and may just decide that he has had enough.
Whatever happens, as a friend said this week, “Let’s hope we don’t see him in a wheelchair”.
In poignant synchrony, on Tuesday, we did see Pele in a Zimmer frame – just typing those words almost brings a tear to the eye – as Netflix launched its documentary in the great man’s name on the day that Tiger’s SUV turned turtle. HBO’s film on Tiger is another must-watch and available on Astro.
If anyone is entitled to a bit of time to themselves, it’s Tiger, who never had a childhood, having been programmed to be a great golfer by his obsessive father. From the age of two, when he appeared on TV as a freak prodigy, the world has had a piece of him.
And it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if his most recent tournament just before Christmas, turned out to be his swansong. He played with his son Charley, 11, and said: “It’s the most fun I’ve had on a golf course in years.”
He does enjoy being a dad and he doesn’t need the money. Unlike Hogan, he doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody, either: 15 Majors is some CV.
If he does call time on his career, instead of grinding out the tournaments in pain, he may be able to catch up on things he’s missed – like the joys of a normal life.
And this car crash would be seen as anything but a tragedy.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.