By Matt Valentine
The thrilling U.S. Open victory pulled off by Tiger Woods came at a very steep price. Woods will be sidelined for the rest of the season and will have to undergo reconstructive surgery on his left knee to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
It will be his third surgery on the knee in the last five years, a troubling trend for a player who relies on his left knee to gain more power on his drives. Woods also revealed that he had a double stress fracture in his left tibia, an injury he sustained two weeks before the U.S. Open.
Woods originally tore the ACL running at his home after the British Open last year, but the injury didn’t cause him significant pain or inhibit his ability to play. He finished out the season winning four out of five tournaments.
The question now will be if or how the injury will effect Woods’ play in the future. Woods has told many people that in order to gain distance on his drives he torques his left knee just before contact. The violent force of his swing could be a big reason why his knee has sustained so many injuries. It remains to be seen if Woods will change anything about his swing, but his play at the U.S. Open could be evidence enough, despite the fracture and the ACL Woods still torqued his knee on nearly every drive causing him substantial pain.
Tiger has not announced when he will undergo surgery, but the normal recovery period for such an operation is usually six to eight months. That means that Tiger will miss the British Open, the Ryder Cup and will not have a chance to defend his title at the PGA Championship. He should be back in time to play at Augusta in April.
The British Open at Royal Birkdale will be the first major Woods has missed in his entire career. Meaning that Jack Nicklaus will undoubtedly hold onto his record of consecutive majors played at 146. Coincidently, Nicklaus’ streak also came to an end at Birkdale in 1998
(Tiger grips his left knee in obvious pain after a shot during the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.)
Losing Tiger for the remainder of the season will have a substantially negative impact on the PGA Tour and the networks that televise the events. Especially considering this is the second year of the FedEx Cup, which Woods dominated last season, winning in a landslide. The loss of Woods should not effect the major events as much as it damages the draw of the PGA Tour.
Despite the obvious headache this causes network execs and the PGA Tour, there are probably a number of players breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of not having to face Tiger for quite some time.
Doctors expect that Woods will make a full recovery, and considering the amount of time that Tiger has been dealing with these injuries and still winning, I suspect we may see an even better Tiger Woods emerge from this operation.
.
