Michaux: Woods won't catch Nicklaus

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Jack Nicklaus will be invited into the NBC booth later this afternoon. He’s the unofficial host of the Honda Classic played on a PGA National Champions course he redesigned near his home in North Palm Beach.

Among the things announcers Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller will talk about with Nicklaus is “The Bear Trap” – the hazard-infested three-hole stretch of 15, 16 and 17 that will go a long way to determining who holds the trophy.

The real Bear trap, however, will undoubtedly be sprung at some point inside that TV tower. It involves Tiger Woods, who isn’t even playing his hometown event this week because his game isn’t PGA Tour quality at the moment.

Nicklaus will invariably be asked if he thinks Woods can still chase down his record of 18 major championship wins. The always diplomatic Nicklaus will answer the same way he did last year, and the year before and the year before that and every year since about 2000. It will be roughly the same answer he gave the Golf Channel 10 days ago, the last time the Bear trap was triggered.

“I still do,” Nicklaus said. “Why would I not think that? … He’s got a lot of golf in front of him. But it’s going to be up to him, he’s still got to do it. He may. He may not. Obviously chances are harder for him now than five years ago, but I still think he has time on his side.”

There might come a day – perhaps when Woods is 50 and still stuck on 14, 15 or (if he’s really lucky) 16 major wins – when an 80-something Nicklaus admits Tiger doesn’t have a chance. But for now there’s still no other acceptable answer for the legend to give. To answer any other way would be undignified.

Deep down, however, we all know that Nicklaus doesn’t really believe Woods can catch him. Nobody who has seen Woods chip and putt like a 20-handicap golfer when he’s not wincing and withdrawing with another back twinge or deactivated glute can possibly believe that he is capable of winning, starting at age 39, as many majors as Phil Mickelson and Seve Ballesteros have in their whole careers.

Frankly, it’s time we all accept it and stop forcing Nicklaus to be disingenuous by asking him the same question over and over again almost seven years after the parameters last changed.

Woods is not going to catch Nicklaus on the major scorecard. At this point, it will be a great accomplishment if Woods covers the three-victory gap on Sam Snead in the all-time PGA Tour wins list. That’s an attainable goal. So would winning another major or two, particularly the Masters Tournament, where Woods has a lifetime exemption against a shorter field. It’s been 10 years since Woods last won at Augusta National. It’s been seven years since he last won any major.

It’s preposterous to believe that the Woods whose chipping proximity in Phoenix in January was 200 percent worse (30 feet) to the second worst player in the field (10 feet) is capable of winning four or five more majors. To quote the late great Leonard Nimoy’s iconic character Mr. Spock, it’s illogical.

Granted, that logic was borne from the simple premise that the worst thing we can do is count Woods out. I’ve fallen into that rabbit hole of thinking myself. When Woods came back to reclaim his No. 1 ranking with a five-win campaign in 2013, it was easy to see that he still possessed an internal genius that could do great things. He was only 37. Time seemed on his side.

But Woods has taken three leaves of absence from tournament golf in the past 12 months – the first to undergo microdisectomy surgery on his back last March, the second after the PGA to give his back more rehab time to get healthy and now a third to attempt to restore his game to tour standards.

“My play, and scores, are not acceptable for tournament golf,” he said in announcing his indefinite leave on Feb. 11. “Like I’ve said, I enter a tournament to compete at the highest level, and when I think I’m ready, I’ll be back.”

Maybe that will be at Bay Hill. Maybe the Masters. Maybe later. Point is, Woods has lost the confidence that once made him the most efficiently successful player the game has ever known. In the past year, however, he’s more than twice as likely to miss the cut or withdraw with injury than he is to complete 72 holes of golf.

“I think he’s struggling more between his ears than he is anyplace else,” Nicklaus told Golf Channel last week.

“He’s sort of a mess right now,” Miller said. “I’m pulling for him but it seems hard for people to start having faith that he’s going to win regular events, let alone majors.”

“Having known him a long, long time, it’s hard to watch,” said David Duval, a former No. 1 player who never fully recovered from his own injuries and shattered confidence. “I had to live through a lot of it on my own, as well. I think that injuries have really broken him down, his physicality, and I think through that, mentally. And once you get scarred mentally, it’s a hard thing to come back from.”

If you love golf and love greatness, you want to see Tiger Woods come back and compete with Rory McIlroy and the rest of golf’s new world order. There’s still genius trapped inside his 39-year-old body yearning to come back out.

“I think Tiger will turn it around,” Nicklaus said. “He’s too dedicated, he works too hard at it, he’s got too much talent. He’ll figure it out. And personally, I think he needs to figure it out himself. Because a teacher can’t teach what’s inside your head. You’ve got to be able to put that positive thought into your head yourself.”

There might be occasions when we’ll get glimpses of the way Woods used to dominate. He might have his own 1986 Masters moment down the road. But to think that the player struggling to break par and make cuts can exhibit the consistent brilliance required to chase down Nicklaus is a massive stretch.

Age is a trap nobody can escape.