Yes
After missing the cut at the British Open on July 18, Tiger Woods’ chance of winning another major championship looks bleak.
Woods finished seconde round 3-over, leaving him 7-over for the tournament and missing the cut substantially for the final two rounds.
Since 2009, Woods has missed 10 tournament cuts, five in the past two years.
Some believe that Woods has completely fallen apart and that he will never win a major championship for the rest of his career, but they are jumping to conclusions.
From 1998 to 2009, Woods was ranked No. 1 constantly, with one No. 2 ranking in 2004.
Woods has won 14 major championships, including four Masters titles, three U.S. Open titles, three British Open Titles, and four PGA Championship titles.
The last championship he won was the 2008 U.S. Open, in which he won the tournament by coming back after trailing by a deficit of 5 strokes with six holes left to go. Woods needed a birdie on the last hole at Torrey Pines and drained the putt to tie the leader Rocco Mediate; Woods won in a sudden-death playoff.
The most amazing part of that victory for Woods was that he won with a torn ligament in his left knee and played injured for the majority of that season.
The 2008 U.S. Open victory for Woods showed us that even under intense physical pain and a daunting mental challenge of coming back 5 strokes with six holes left to play, Woods was the greatest golfer in the PGA. And he isn’t finished yet.
Although Woods hasn’t kept up to his track record of major victories and countless of other smaller tournament victories after his sex scandal and divorce from his wife in November 2008, he still has at least one more major victory in him.
Woods still has all his accomplishments. If he could win 14 majors in 11 years, he can win at least one more between now and when he retires.
— Rod Engblom
No
Tiger Wood has remained in the spotlight, and thus remained in the discussion, because he was once possibly the greatest golfer. Talent such as that can never be counted out, but the past almost seven years have proven that Tiger simply no longer has that talent and has in all likelihood said goodbye to his days as a top contender.
He hasn’t won a major since 2008, and we all know what has happened since then. Woods’ scandal with infidelity not only took him away from the game for significant time, but many believe he has never regained the psychological composure that once made him so dominant.
There were obviously much larger issues in play when it comes to Tiger’s scandal, but as it pertains to the game of golf; it clearly triggered a demise that seems to be fatal.
Woods has won smaller tournaments, including two World Golf Championships in 2013, since his last major, but he is nearly two years removed from any victories at all and has begun to struggle with physical ailments as the 39-year-old’s game is dwindling at a shocking rate.
Woods took time off earlier this year to get his body right, but he has returned to do nothing but smudge his myth as the perfect golfing specimen. Spectators watch Woods with apathy and the occasional hint of humor as he struggles to make cuts, including a 7-over finish at last weekend’s British Open.
Between his unprecedented lack of composure since his scandal, and his lingering physical hindrances, Woods flat-out isn’t the caliber of player to compete with the sport’s newest stars.
Jordan Spieth at 21 had won two majors in a row before Zach Johnson claimed the British Open — and those two, combined with the likes of Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson — represent a new age of golf. Woods will soon find out that it doesn’t include him.
— Kyle Mann