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Con: He went on major drought after last knee surgery
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If there were a barometer built to measure the golfing world's confidence in Tiger Woods, the device surely would have buried its needle this past week.
Woods underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on April 15. He hasn't played a competitive round of golf in the nearly two months that followed.
Yet Woods, who has won about 29 percent of his 221 events in which he has entered as a professional, was installed as a 7-4 favorite to limp back on the course this weekend at Torrey Pines and win his third U.S. Open.
I can't think of a better example that an athlete, in the mind of his game's observers, has transformed from flesh and bones into a mythological being.
Yet Woods can't possibly achieve such a feat next weekend in San Diego. Can he?
It's not like Michael Jordan walked off the baseball diamond and right into the NBA Finals when he returned to basketball.
The history is against such an achievement. When Woods last underwent knee surgery in December 2002, it took him more than two years to taste a major victory.
This is his third such operation on his left knee.
"That's been kind of where the force of my golf swing has taken basically the brunt of it," Woods told PGA.com last week.
In fact, the last time he faced such a layoff, when his father, Earl, died in 2006, Woods missed the cut at the U.S. Open.
Woods does feel at home at Torry Pines, where he once won the Junior World Championship. He's captured six Buick Invitational events on the course, including an active streak of four straight.
Although it is unlikely that he'll win his third U.S. Open this weekend, it will be interesting to see how Woods fares on his return.
"I really do miss it," said Woods. "I really do miss being in that competitive environment. That's the atmosphere in general. I do miss it."
— Joe Curley is a staff writer. He can be reached at jcurley@VenturaCountyStar.com.
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