Tiger Woods channels LeBron James in The Decision, Part Deux

Tiger Woods and LeBron James share more than just the same birthday (December 30) and elite status in their respective fields of athletic endeavor. Each drama-queen superstar has a particular penchant for holding the sports world in thrall to every twist and turn in his career — on the court and off, inside the ropes and out.

While James has moved on from his The Decision PR nightmares, golf watchers are held hostage as Woods goes through his most recent To Play or Not To Play moment — whether to suit up for Thursday’s start of the PGA Championship after severe back pain forced him out of last week’s tilt at Firestone, or pack up his spikes for the rest of the season.

“I’ve had a brief chance to talk with [Tiger] a little bit and everything’s still up in the air. There’s a lot of uncertainty as to how he’s feeling, whether or not it’s in his best interest to try it out. I know he wants to,” Woods insider and Golf Channel analyst Notah Begay said during a conference call Tuesday morning.

“It’s almost an hour-by-hour sort of thing,” said Woods’ former Stanford teammate, echoing comments expressed by Tiger’s manager, Mark Steinberg, a day earlier.

“Way too early [Woods’ status for Valhalla],” Steinberg said in a Monday text to ESPN’s Bob Harig, who was obliged to update the non-story everyone was chasing with last night’s tweet from the PGA that breathlessly reported Woods had cancelled his Tuesday morning press conference. “He has to rest and get treatment and then assess later. Pointless to make that decision now without proper time to give him best chance. Nothing further today, maybe [not] even tomorrow.”

The histrionics surrounding the Tiger Watch would be far more compelling if Woods, like James, were still at the top of his game. The sad fact is that the golfer formerly known as No. 1 is now ranked 10th in the world and will slip even lower in the standings whether or not he’s able to bend down and tie his shoes — a task that clearly aggravated his back on Sunday after his WD.

Woods left Firestone, a course on which he was seeking a record ninth win, after his drive on the ninth hole. He said he “jarred” his back after a shot from an awkward stance at the edge of a bunker on No. 2 but played through it until he could no longer do so.

The WGC-Bridgestone Invitational was the third start for 38-year-old Woods since he returned from a March 31 microdiscectomy. He missed the cut in his first event back, last month’s Quicken Loans National, and finished 69th at the British Open two weeks ago.

Once a favorite to win this year’s PGA Championship on the same course that yielded his 2000 PGA title, Woods was reportedly resting at home in Florida early in the week, pending his Decision, while caddie Joe LaCava stalked Valhalla for his boss.

Despite LaCava’s presence in Louisville, conventional wisdom was that there would be no Tiger prowling in the Blue Grass State or anywhere else until 2015.

“To me, it looks like he needs a lot of time off and get his body completely as healthy as it can get,” Begay’s colleague, Brandel Chamblee said during the teleconference. “He still has time [to challenge Jack Nicklaus’ mark of 18 major titles] and history says that players can win major championships at 46, 47, 48 years of age so he still has time.

“It’s just that he needs to get healthy,” said Chamblee. “I can’t imagine how he’s going to at this point because his list of injuries reads like a linebacker or a running back in the NFL.”

Begay concurred.

“Three months is a lot of time off,” Begay said about the lengthy stint Woods spent on the DL following the procedure on his back. “It’s difficult to tell an athlete in any sport, especially the ones that are ultra-competitive to stay on the sidelines … and I know Tiger isn’t any different.

“But just the succession of injuries that have taken place over the last five or six years starts to take a toll —the physical toll is one thing; the mental and emotional toll are another,” said Begay.

To Begay, it was time for Woods to focus not on competitive golf but on his well-being.

“The biggest priority is to get healthy and just make sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that you can endure the lifestyle on the PGA Tour of playing so many competitive rounds,” he said. “Tiger doesn’t play a heavy schedule so these injuries are coming in playing almost a third less events than probably is the tour average. So there is something is going to have to develop here that would possibly, hopefully change his ability to stay healthy.”

While neither Begay or Chamblee is a doctor, or even plays one on TV, some of those in the actual medical profession told SB Nation they viewed the outcome of Woods’ season similarly.

“Most of me says he’s better off resting and waiting, but if he has some miraculous recovery and is feeling 100 percent, or as good as last Thursday [when he started the Bridgestone], then he can play, ” Dr. Michael Leighton, a sports medicine specialist at the Palm Beach Orthopedic Institute, said on Monday. “I don’t really think that’s going to happen.”

Dr. Selene Parekh, associate professor of surgery in Duke University’s orthopedic surgery department, was more definitive about what he believed the near future held for Woods.

“I think he’s done for the season,” said Parekh, who, like Leighton, has no first-hand knowledge of Woods’ injury or condition. From afar, Parekh — again, with no access to Woods’ MRIs or other diagnostic records — worried that the pain Tiger said he felt early into Sunday’s doomed round could be more than “just a simple spasm,” and rather, “something that’s the tip of the iceberg for something bigger,” like arthritis.

Without entertaining any worst-case scenarios, it remains “hour by hour” as to whether Woods will tee it up come Thursday. Should he decide that the stress and strain of competing in the event that marks this season’s last chance for him to break his six-year major winless streak is too much for his surgically repaired back, he can put 2014 to rest as well as his body.

Yes, he could miss the third of four majors for the first time in his career and still try to earn his way into the playoffs and onto the Ryder Cup team with a win at next week’s Wyndham Championship. But does anyone really envision Tiger teeing it up in an event he’s never played?

No, it’s Valhalla or bust for the ailing winner of 79 PGA Tour events. We’ll all just have to wait for the final word out of Jupiter Island before we may resume our regularly scheduled programming.