Tiger Woods instructed longtime caddy Steve Williams to smash his surgically repaired left leg and knee late Sunday night in a last-ditch effort to regain the form that saw him win the U.S. Open last year. The reversal of the surgery for a broken leg and torn ACL was deemed “a success” by Woods as he hobbled from the locker rooms at Bethpage Black ahead of Monday’s rain-delayed final round.
“Right now I feel good; and by that I mean in tremendous pain,” said Woods after Williams slammed a sledgehammer into his leg several times in the restroom at the Bethpage Black clubhouse. “I know I needed to do something to get back to where I was last year if I want to have any chance to defend my title, so this is the gameplan we’ve come up with.”
Woods won last year’s tournament at Torrey Pines while playing through excruciating pain from his leg injuries, and immediately had surgery that caused him to miss eight months of action. He finished play on Sunday 10 shots out of the lead with 15 holes to play, a situation that Woods said demanded “desperate measures.”
Golf Channel analyst Frank Nobilo said that Woods’ willingness to have a crippling injury inflicted on himself just showed his legendary competitive spirit.
“How many other players in the world would be willing to endure such abject pain in order to give himself a chance to pull off an improbable comeback?,” Nobilo said. “It just shows that inside this champion lies the heart of a masochist – and inside that heart is a masochistic champion.”
Best-selling author John Feinstein also speculated that Woods’ actions might have a psychological impact on the other players in the field.
“I’m sure that they could hear the sickening thud of sledgehammer against bone and flesh and Woods’ bloodcurdling scream in the locker room as they were ready to leave for the night,” Feinstein said. “That certainly gives the other players something to think about as they sleep tonight. When Tiger Woods is crippling himself in order to win a championship, everyone knows it.”
