Last Friday Tiger Woods called Jack Nicklaus to say he was a no for this week’s Memorial Tournament due to his continuing knee and Achilles issues. Today, at his tournament press conference, Jack detailed that phone call:
Tiger called me Friday and he was trying to — he said, I tried up until today to see if I’m going to be able to come and play, but I can’t. He said, I’m still hobbling, and he said, I don’t know whether I’m going to make the U.S. Open or not.
I suspect he’ll make the U.S. Open, but I don’t know whether he will. I don’t know the extent of his injuries.
If that is word for word, then I’m not quite sure we’ll see Tiger at Congressional in two weeks. That doesn’t sound very confident to me.
Im fact, reading between the lines, it sure looks like, from this next quote, that Jack encouraged him to sit out whether than give it a go, possibly unhealthy:
I told Tiger when I was on the phone with him, which is the same thing I’ve said to him a thousand times, Tiger, nobody ever wants records to be broken. That’s obvious. I mean, I don’t care who it is. But I certainly don’t want you not to be healthy and not have the opportunity to play to break records. I want you to get yourself healthy, do what you have to do to go play, get your golf game back in shape, and I wish you well, wish you good luck, which I would say that to any athlete and anybody, because I think that’s the way it should be.
Hmmm. The guessing game goes on.
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