Injured Tiger Woods may play PGA Championship

Woods will decide “when ready” whether his spine can take the rigors of the men’s final major of the season, manager Mark Steinberg told Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis after his client returned home to Florida from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, via private jet Sunday night.

Woods, who was in obvious pain as he withdrew midway through Sunday’s final round, has until his Thursday, 8:35 a.m. ET tee time with Phil Mickelson to make a final determination about his PGA plans. From what we saw and what Woods said on Sunday after he retired on the ninth hole of a course that has yielded eight of his 79 PGA Tour wins, it would seem a safe bet that Woods’ chances of winning his 15th career major will have to wait until April at the earliest.

(Videos: PGA Tour)

But, we’re talking Tiger Woods, who, like one of those inflatable kids’ punching bags that bounces right back up after every blow to the midsection, keeps rebounding from injury after injury. There was the inflamed neck joint that felled him in the final round of the 2010 Players Championship, the knee and Achilles tendon that forced him out of the 2011 Players, the Achilles that caused his WD from the 2012 WGC-Cadillac Championship, and the back pain that cut short this season’s Honda Classic and now the Bridgestone.

“He hit some shots that we’re not used to seeing Tiger hit, even when he’s coming back from an injury like this,” said Bubba Watson, Woods’ playing partner in Sunday’s finale, Tiger’s 10th competitive round since his March 31 microdiscectomy. “Obviously, something was bothering him.”

At 215th in the FedExCup playoff standings, Woods will not only need to play in the PGA but win it if he hopes to extend his lost season beyond this week’s grand slam. That’s a tall order for a healthy contender, let alone a wobbly, rep-deficient challenger, what with Rory McIlroy looking unbeatable after earning a win at his second straight event following his British Open victory two weeks ago.

Should he fail to advance to the first leg of the four-game playoffs, The Barclays, it would mark the second time in the history of the FEC series that Woods, who missed three months in 2011 due to injuries, will have failed to qualify for the postseason. Injuries also were to blame for Woods missing the 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup team, and at 69th in points and dependent on captain Tom Watson naming him to this year’s squad, he is likely to be a no-show in the biennial event for just the second time in his career.

Playing in just his third post-op tourney, Woods carded a missed cut at last month’s Quicken Loans National, a contest he said he entered -- probably too soon after his procedure -- because his foundation was the primary beneficiary. He followed that up with the Open Championship, where he struggled to a final-round 75 and the worst total score in a British Open.

And then there was Sunday’s misadventure, which ended prematurely and would seem to have finished Woods for the 2014 campaign. But despite what Watson and the viewing public witnessed, Woods was to meet with his back specialist while caddie Joe LaCava told GC’s Lewis he planned to drive from Akron to Valhalla in Louisville, Ky., on a reconnaissance mission for his boss.

In only his 10th competitive round since undergoing a March 31 microdiscectomy to relieve a pinched nerve, Woods said his back went into spasm after he hit his second shot from a fairway bunker on the par-4 second hole from an awkward stance, which propelled him back down a slope and into the sand.

“I fell back into the bunker. It just jarred it, and it’s been spasming ever since,” said Woods, who flailed his way around for six more holes before hailing a golf cart to take him to the parking lot. “It’s just the whole lower back. I don’t know what happened when I landed.”

Now, as the golf world breathlessly awaits the white or black smoke from the conclave on Jupiter Island signaling yea or nay, Mickelson, for one, has his fingers crossed that Woods can hobble to the tee for their Thursday and Friday golf dates.

The resurgent Lefty, who has had nearly as miserable and injury-plagued a season as Woods, fired an 8-under 62 to finish T15 at 5-under, 10 shots back of winner Rory McIlroy, in his final tuneup for the PGA.

Despite his hopes of going head-to-head with Woods for the 35th time in their long, storied careers, Mickelson recognized that what he saw on Sunday of his would-be Valhalla opening rounds playing partner could well preclude the renewal of a longtime rivalry between the two aging superstars.

“It didn’t look good,” Mickelson, who had an unobstructed view of Woods’ final hole, his ninth, from his vantage point on the 11th fairway. “It looked like he was really in pain. I hope he’s OK. I mean, I hope he’s able to play next week. I hope it’s a muscle and nothing serious because I’m really looking forward to playing with him.

“We rarely get paired together,” said Mickelson. “As much as I love playing with him, playing against him, trying to beat him, we all want him in the field. We all want him back. I just hope he’s OK.”