Is It Over? Tiger Woods Falls To Lowest World Ranking Since 1996
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- His fall from grace has been remarkable -- and there's no telling when or if it will end.
The new world golf rankings came out on Monday and Tiger Woods finds himself at No. 62, his lowest spot since he was No. 75 on Oct. 5, 1996, just a few weeks after he turned professional as a 20-year-old.
Back, leg and neck injuries have played a role in the downfall of a legendary career. According to CBSSports.com, if Woods doesn't make any cuts between now and the opening round of the Masters in April, he will fall out of the top 100.
Woods, who has occupied the No. 1 spot in the world for 683 weeks during his illustrious career, has played in just nine tournaments in the last calendar year and has just one Top 25 finish. In that span he finished 69th at last year's British Open, missed four cuts and was forced to withdraw from three other tournaments, including last week's Farmers Insurance Open after just 11 holes.
He was on the 12th green at Torrey Pines on Thursday when he had to call it a day due to back spasms.
"I was ready to go," said Woods, who the week before missed the cut at the Phoenix Open following a second-round 82, the highest score of his career. "I had a good warmup session the first time around. Then we stood out here and I got cold, and everything started deactivating again. And it's frustrating that I just can't stay activated. That's just kind of the way it is."
Though not everyone is ready to count him out, the fact remains Woods has not won a tournament since winning five times in 2013 and these days is so fragile physically it's hard to imagine him being able to put one good round together, let alone four in the same week.
However, provided he's healthy, Woods will be able to continue his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championships regardless of how poorly he plays on tour. As a former champion at the Masters, British Open and PGA Championship he has a lifetime exemption. His last U.S. Open title, and the 14th major tournament win of his career, came in 2008 and granted him a 10-year exemption, which runs through the tournament in 2017.
As for whether Woods will be in game shape for this year's Masters, it's hard to say. A usual tune-up, the Honda Classic -- which Woods has yet to commit to this year -- could prove pivotal considering he'd have to do very well to climb back into the top 50 in the rankings so he could qualify for the no-cut WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral.
Woods also has yet to commit to the Bay Hill event hosted by Arnold Palmer in March, but he's won it seven times so it stands to reason he'd show up again if physically able.
But at this point there's just no telling if Woods' gimpy body will allow him to be even a fraction of his former self by the time the field converges on Augusta National in early April.
As for the future, who knows? Woods is likely just looking at things on a tournament-to-tournament basis at this point.
