Tiger Woods’ Latest Return Tease Preventing Adjustment to a New Reality

Tiger Woods. PGA Tour grinder.

Given a career resume that makes him a mandatory part of chats about the game’s all-time greats, even suggesting such a label seems blasphemous.

After all, he has 79 tour victories and 14 major championships. The Associated Press deemed him the “Athlete of the Decade” for the first 10 years of the millennium.

He’ll be the player today’s 40-somethings tell their grandkids they saw in his prime.

But as anyone who got Monday’s bulletin from TigerWoods.com can attest, those days feel long gone.

A 199-word missive bearing the Stanford alum’s own byline broke the news that a long-awaited return to competition after 14 months will be delayed for what seems like the millionth time.

Just three days after confirming entry at this weekend’s Safeway Open at Silverado Country Club in Napa, California, Woods delivered a week-opening downer with a claim that while his health is good and his surgically-repaired body is strong, his game (read: psyche) remains “vulnerable and not where it needs to be.”

A shotgun ride alongside a victorious U.S. Ryder Cup team earlier this month woke up the echoes of the now-40-year-old’s former greatness, but his own cyber words poured cold water on anyone expecting a precipitous uptick from a current No. 786 world ranking.

“I practiced the last several days in California, but after a lot of hours, I knew I wasn’t ready to compete against the best golfers in the world,” Woods continued. “This isn’t what I wanted to happen, but I will continue to strive to be able to play tournament golf. I’m close, and I …

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