It might be said the recent news that Tiger Woods will not be fit to play in the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania sent shock waves throughout the world of golf, other than for the fact that it was in accordance with all reasonable expectations.
Woods announced on his website that he is not ready for tournament competition of any kind, let alone one of golf’s Majors.
Since 2008, when a limping Woods managed to best journeyman Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff to win his last Major, the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in California, he has been a shadow not only of his former self, but of anyone’s former self as he has dealt with the consequences of injuries and surgeries in the attempt to get back to his old level and his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s 18 career-Major record.
He last played competitive golf in 2015’s Wyndham Championship in August, but that outing was enough to convince him that all was not proper, and he had two additional surgeries on his back in September and October.
As a former Champion of the U.S. Open, three of them in fact, Woods automatically qualified for a spot in the field, but his slot will go instead to one of a group of 12 alternates.
