Mike Celizic

Tiger Woods cemented his macho credentials in a country-club game when he limped around Torrey Pines for 91 holes on a broken leg and a knee with a blown ACL. There’s no need any longer for shows of toughness. Now’s the time for smart decisions.

No one, including Tiger and his doctors, knows how many more rounds of golf or how many more miles of jogging are left in his left knee. It’s been repaired four times now, and Tiger has admitted that it’s been hurting for 10 or 12 years — essentially his entire professional career.

So you know he’ll accept some pain to get back into tournament mode, even if the pain is because the knee isn’t completely healed. He likes to say he’s not good at listening to doctors. He seems to take this as a point of honor, and in some cases it can be. But he’s talking about the rest of his career now. If he takes care of himself, it could be another dozen years or more. If he doesn’t, he could be back on the sidelines at any moment.

If there’s ever a time to listen to the doctors and be more conservative with his health than Ronald Reagan was with his politics, this is the time. There’s no need to become a rehab hero and do more than is demanded by the therapists. There’s no need to take to the highways and put in hundreds of pounding miles of running. If he wants cardiovascular fitness, he can swim or ride a bike. Same effect, less stress on the joints.

That’s one of the things I keep thinking of. Woods knew his left ACL was weak and would probably go some day. Yet he kept running on it, kept putting stress on it, kept acting as if he were some comic book hero who couldn't get hurt. And when he did get hurt, he ignored that fact and kept right on doing things that were going to hasten the ultimate breakdown.

That’s not courageous, it’s just dumb.

That’s why there is no need now to come back early. Not on a leg that’s been under the knife four times and is running a cartilage deficit.

Normally, I’d say it doesn’t matter what he does. It’s his knee and his career, and he has every right to do with both what he wants. If his career were to end today, I’m willing to take a risk and say he’ll be able to pay the rent for the rest of his life and keep gas in the yacht.

And if that meant he didn’t get the four more majors he needs to take away Jack Nicklaus’ title as the greatest golfer ever, that’s his problem. I’ll be sorry if he doesn’t get it, but I won’t lose any sleep over it unless he promises to lose some sleep over my continuing failure to win a Pulitzer.

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