The reason cited for Tiger Woods’ withdrawal from the Dubai Desert Classic two weeks ago was back spasms. His agent, Mark Steinberg, insisted the back trouble was unrelated to the nerve pain that seriously threatened to end his career and forced three different surgeries in two years. Whatever is happening with Tiger’s health this time around, it certainly seems to be more significant than some isolated spasm.
Tiger Woods cancels press conference after doctors order him to ‘limit all activities’
Tiger backed out of this week’s Genesis Open, but he was supposed to serve as the host. Now his doctors don’t even want him having a press conference.
On Tuesday night, Tiger’s camp sent an announcement that his press conference at the Genesis Open at Riviera, where’s he hosting the PGA Tour stop this week, is now off due to doctors’ orders. Woods was supposed to meet the press on Tuesday around 2 p.m. ET, but word came down Tuesday morning that it was pushed back a day to Wednesday. Then came the news that there would be nothing at all, and now the tourney host might not be seen for the entire week at Riviera.
It’s a bizarre turn. Just last Friday, when Tiger said he was advised to sit out his next two scheduled starts -- this week at Riv and next week’s Honda Classic — the announcement on his website said he was expected to be in Los Angeles to support the event that now benefits his Tiger Woods Foundation. Then these press conferences are scheduled and re-scheduled and then canceled in the 11th hour.
As ESPN’s Bob Harig noted above in his tweet, that Tiger is forbidden from “all activities,” including sitting in a chair and answering questions, portends a more serious obstacle for his ability to get back to playing golf. The assumption has been that Tiger would next tee it up at the Arnold Palmer Inivitational at Bay Hill, an event he has won eight times. That’s about a month away.
This four-event-in-five-week return at the start of this year was an ambitious schedule. Tiger lasted just three full rounds, is not even healthy enough to do basic PR appearances, and his team is being secretive and ambitious, which is standard operating procedure. In the past when he’s been unable to play events that his foundations hosts, he’s still done the press conferences and been on the grounds to give out the trophy. Maybe it’s just a case of really bad spasms, but this is another depressing development in a highly anticipated comeback that’s rapidly become depressing. The Masters is 50 days away.
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