Brennan: Tiger Woods is a changed man

BETHESDA, Md.– Tiger Woods has left another 2014 golf tournament early, but this time, he wasn’t unhappy about it.

Woods found all kinds of positive developments in his rounds of 74 and 75 that left him a whopping 7-over-par, four shots above the cut line at the Quicken Loans National Friday evening.

He spoke like any patient who underwent back surgery less than three months ago and could barely do anything for a month or so afterward. There was a perceptible stiffness as he walked the course and swung a club. There also was relief. There was perspective. There were silver linings.

This is what the back end of one of the great careers in sports looks and sounds like.

Woods is 38 1/2 years old, with a body that skews older due to the wear and tear he put himself through as a young man playing the game of golf, and life, at break-neck speed.

This doesn’t mean he isn’t going to win any more major championships. It would be silly to write Woods off now. It’s just too soon.

But what we are learning through cameos such as this two-day appearance at the tournament that benefits Woods’ foundation is that he’s not the same driven, god-like figure on the golf course that he used to be.

Spectators can cheer as they once did. But his body has had it.

And that’s why 74-75 was a good score for Tiger Woods, circa 2014

“I hate to say it,” he said after his second round, “but I’m really encouraged by what happened this week. I missed the cut by four shots. That’s a lot. But the fact that what I was able to do physically and the speed I had and distance that I was hitting the golf ball again, I had not done that in a very long time.

“And to recover like I did overnight, still leery about it, how am I going to recover? I felt great today. Then I made so many little mistakes, missing the ball on the wrong sides, not having the right feel for certain shots, not judging the wind correctly. All the little things, and speed on putts, all the little things that I know I can fix. But as I said, that’s very encouraging.”

Tiger really is a changed man.

This is going to take some getting used to. Woods hurried back to the PGA Tour this week to get the rust out, didn’t seem to get much if any of the rust out in a second round that featured four consecutive bogeys on the back nine, and now will disappear for nearly three weeks until he resurfaces for the first round of the British Open.

It’s an interesting strategy. He says he’s taking his kids on vacation, then will get back to practicing before going to Liverpool, England, to the Open at Hoylake, where he won the last time the championship was played there, in 2006.

Woods said he is “very excited” to get to Hoylake.

“I’m excited to play that golf course,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s changed since we played it. It’s been a bone-dry winter in England …”

In 2006, the course was dry and hard and fast, and Tiger loved it.

But in his news conference Friday, it was mentioned that at the moment, it’s now lush, with thick rough.

“Lush?” Woods said. “That’s very different than what we played it. When we played it, it was hard and fast and it was brown. So we’ll see what happens when we get there.”

A “lush” Open was not necessarily in his plans. Of course, almost nothing is as it seems anymore for Tiger.

At the moment, “We’ll see what happens when we get there” is as good a game plan as any for him.

TIGER WOODS’ PGA TOUR VICTORIES

Brennan: Tiger Woods is a changed man