TIGER WOODS slunk away from Winged Foot vowing to come back refreshed and ready for a six-month run that could define his golfing legacy.
That stint will see him defend the most recent title he won, as well as taking on a Masters double-header.
He will also turn 45 in the middle of it — and if that is all he has to celebrate, it will surely be time to concede that the Tiger era is finally over.
But the 15-time Major champion is in no mood to accept the glory days are behind him, despite missing the US Open cut by four shots on ten over.
He said: “There’s still one more Major to go this year — and my Zozo title defence at Sherwood.
“We have a couple of big, big things ahead of us. It’s frustrating that I’m not here for the weekend competing for this great championship.
“I didn’t give myself that opportunity.
“So I’m not going to be swinging a club for a little bit. Well, until Tuesday, because I’ve already something arranged for that day.
“Then after that, take a little break, and then refocus, and get back after it.”
Woods will take four weeks off to get over his latest flop — he missed the cut for the eighth time in his last 15 Majors — before blowing the dust off his clubs and teeing it up at the Zozo Championship from October 22-25.
He won that event in Japan last year, steamrolling the opposition even though he had just returned from yet another knee operation.
The travel restrictions to and from the USA have led to that event being switched to Sherwood Country Club in California, where Woods has won five times previously.
His victory in the Far East 11 months ago was his 82nd on the PGA Tour, tying the record set by Sam Snead.
Claiming that record as his own is one of Woods’ biggest remaining goals. The other is chasing down Jack Nicklaus’ haul of 18 Majors.
Woods is three short after clinching a highly emotional fifth Masters victory last year.
If he does not pull on a sixth Green Jacket at the re-scheduled Masters in November — or when it returns to its usual date next April — he can kiss goodbye to his faint hopes of catching the Golden Bear.
Woods’ struggles away from Augusta suggest his only chance of adding to his tally anywhere else will probably come when The Open returns to St Andrews in 2022.
He has lifted the Claret Jug at the Home of Golf twice, in 2000 and 2005.
But turning back the clock as a 46-year-old, and beating off the new generation of Major-hungry golfers, is a massive long shot.
Woods has made a habit of proving people wrong and making the extraordinary seem almost routine — like winning The Masters again after four back operations and countless other surgeries.
But seeing him struggle this year, you sense the wear and tear — and Father Time — may have caught up with him.
