Tiger Woods’ next comeback will be his last, says Notah Begay

While the 2016 U.S. Ryder Cup team was taking shape on Sunday without him on the squad, Tigers Woods celebrated the 20th anniversary of his debut as a professional with the knowledge that the next comeback from his latest injuries will likely be his curtain call.

“Just like 1996 was the beginning, this is going be the beginning of a new chapter for Tiger Woods and probably his last,” longtime friend and confidant Notah Begay said on Golf Channel on Sunday. “He understands that he’s much closer to the end of his career than the beginning, if he has another injury and has to sustain another rehabilitation period that he might not make it back.”

Begay recently spent a day with his Stanford teammate, who’s been on the DL for a year recovering from multiple back surgeries, and said he was “doing great” as the two “did some practicing, hit some balls.” And while Woods himself continues to drop hints but no specifics about a potential return to competition (“in the future,” he said cagily last week on a Barstool Sports podcast), and Nike gets out of the golf-gear biz, equipment vendors are apparently wooing the former world No. 1 with their shiniest new toys.

“I walked into his dining room and it was like going into a PGA [Tour] Superstore now that Nike equipment line no longer exists,” said Begay. “Every single manufacturer had sent equipment in there and he’s trying a variety of different things, trying to get a sense of where he’s going to go from this point on. It will be a new chapter.”

Every single manufacturer, perhaps, except PXG. The founder of the pricey new entry into the sticks and balls game said earlier this month he had no interest in having the washed-up superstar sport his stuff.

“There’s no doubt that Tiger has been an icon in the game, that no one has done as much for golf as anyone in history and he’s highly respected for that,” Bob Parsons, also the founder of GoDaddy.com, told Golf Digest. “But I don’t know that his game is what it once was.”

At least one veteran Tiger watcher may believe Parsons ought to reconsider his sentiments about the no-longer-30-something with 14 major titles.

“No 40-year-old athlete ever becomes 24 years old again so we’re not going to see the year 2000 happen again,” Golf Digest senior writer Ron Sirak, referring to the year Woods started the Tiger Slam with his U.S. Open victory, said Monday on Morning Drive. “I do think Tiger’s got some more goose-bump moments waiting for us … I have no doubt he has more thrills ahead of us.”

Whether he has more in the tank or not, Sirak noted that Woods had forever changed the way the world views the game that Tiger dominated for so many years.

“He took golf from the back of the sports section to the front of the news section,” said Sirak. “He took golf out of the shadows and put it in the spotlight and you cannot underestimate the importance of that.”

Certainly, many of today’s tour pros can thank Woods for their hefty paychecks. Begay noted that before Tiger came along, they had to make do with $3 million purses on average; now the average prize package is more than $6 million and in the $10 million range for majors.

So as the golf world moves on from Tiger’s platinum anniversary amid Ryder Cup doings and FedEx Cup points, maybe take a few moments to marvel over some of the numbers that define Woods’ incredible career. Because, as Begay observed, his pal may not have “played worth a lick” for the last couple of years but “he’s still at the top of all these records and we still have to talk about him because his records are still relevant.”

14 -- Major championships, second only to Jack Nicklaus’ 18

79 -- PGA Tour wins, second only to Sam Snead’s 82

142 -- Most consecutive cuts made, longest streak in tour history

11 — Most Player of the Year honors

10 — Most money titles

9 — Most season scoring titles

860 — Most weeks as No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings

Happy anniversary, Tiger.