Commentary: We all knew Tiger Woods' ending would be sad

Tiger made it to 50, anyway. Speed was always his worst enemy. Club-head speed on the tees and fairways sent golf balls flying higher and farther and faster than anyone dared imagine. That impossible swing challenged a body perfected, but mortal; it helped make him the best golfer the world had ever seen and, as such, a beacon of hope for a generation. Speed on the streets and boulevards has fully destroyed that body and cost him his reputation. Speed has sped him to the end of his career. For the second time in nine years, Tiger Woods has retreated from golf. This came after a fourth disturbing traffic incident. Like two of the others, this incident included the involvement of substances. Woods faces a DUI charge with property damage and refusal to take a lawful test in Florida after he collided with a truck and rolled his car Friday. The arresting officer reported that he was sweaty, lethargic and stumbling. No one was injured, and he passed a Breathalyzer test, but he refused a urinalysis and was found to have two hydrocodone pills in his pocket. Hydrocodone is an opioid. "I am stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health," Woods wrote on Twitter/X Tuesday. Earlier Tuesday, Woods pleaded not guilty to the charges. Woods, coming back from his latest series of surgeries, had competed in the TGL indoor virtual golf league last week and hinted that he would play next week in the Masters, where he has won five green jackets. Now the question is, when, if ever, will the discerning dons at Augusta National allow him back on the property? Sad? Not really. It's difficult to muster any sympathy for Woods. He's a menace. A recent CDC study over a 22-month period showed that, in accidents in which drivers were seriously injured, about 25% of them tested positive for drugs. Woods might have a substance abuse problem, which is unfortunate, and it might stem from pain management during his injury-addled career, which is unfortunate. But he has the means to travel without driving himself, and he has the sense to know better than to get behind the wheel and risk the lives of others. Maybe this is just who he is. Indifferent. Selfish. Narcissistic. It was always going to end like this. If we're honest with ourselves, we knew it years ago. With apologies to Michael Jordan, who is a certain kind of phenomenon, Tiger Woods was the most significant global athlete since Muhammad Ali. Golf, like boxing, permeates worldwide culture far more than basketball ever will. Woods was a multi-ethnic superstar who in 1996 created out of whole cloth a golf division for Nike and helped it become the No. 1 apparel brand on the planet. He was golf's biggest thing since Arnold Palmer. But he was no Arnold Palmer. Tiger's body earned him 15 major championships and 82 PGA Tour wins, but it couldn't handle the wear and tear. Tiger's character earned him admirers for his commitment and his toughness, but it couldn't handle the fame and fortune. It was always going to end like this. We knew it when he swiftly changed from an engaging teenage phenom into a surly corporate robot by his mid-20s, a Nike-spawned "Cablinasian." That's how he described himself to Oprah Winfrey in 1997, which appeared to be less an embrace of his multiple ethnicities than a mechanism to avoid the sort of categorization that might have affected his marketability. Legions of Black Americans never forgave him. We knew it when we saw him punishing his body while training with Navy SEALs in 2006 as he coped with the death of his father, Earl, who was a Green Beret. We knew it when he pushed through injury after injury as a young man. We knew it when his compulsions ruined his family as a young husband and father. Perhaps it is unfair to compare Woods with Palmer, or Ali, or any worldwide icon under the hot lamp of scrutiny that the sports world became at the turn of this century. The closest thing to Tiger that America has produced this century is LeBron James, who seldom gets the credit for his impeccably led life. Impeccability is rare. Arnie had it. Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving. Arthur Ashe. Serena. Maybe others. But it is rare. So is ungodly talent. On the golf course, Tiger had more than anyone, ever. But even he could not properly, perfectly harness it. He'd had five left knee surgeries and six back surgeries before the devastating auto accident in 2021 shattered his lower right leg and put his future in the sort of peril from which there was no return. When most golf aficionados first witnessed the fluid, violent, marvelously impossible swing of postcollegiate Tiger Woods, they predicted he would have to reduce its immense torque or risk that the power he generated would tear apart the chassis that generated power heretofore unseen. The experts and the pseudo-experts were right, to a degree. Overtraining cost him his knee and his back, but those ailments might have been salvageable if not for the accident in 2021. The injuries from that accident never allowed him to be the same competitive PGA Tour golfer who dominated for 20 years. He might one day play some Old Man Golf on the Champions Tour, with its three-day events and its golf carts and its John Daly, but the Tiger Woods who once ruled the sporting world is now forever gone. There won't even be a whisper of that Tiger Woods. Not ever again. It was inevitable, wasn't it? No matter how well he was protected by authorities and his agents and his "brand," we all knew this was coming. Details from his crash with a fire hydrant in 2009 in the Florida neighborhood in which he then lived have always been fuzzy, but the crash happened in the wee hours after Thanksgiving night and followed three surgeries in 2008 and chronic Achilles tendon issues in 2009. The aftermath included revelations of infidelities and, ultimately, divorce. Details from his high-speed, single-car, residential-area, multiple-rollover crash in California in 2021 also are incomplete. The aftermath included his near death, the near amputation of his lower right leg and the effective end of his competitive golf career. Details from his 2017 DUI arrest in Florida were precise: He was asleep in his car while it was running on the side of the road. Among the drugs authorities found in his system: Xanax, Ambien, Vicodin and THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana. The aftermath included a stint in rehab before a successful comeback. And here we are again. Walking away from the game, again. Tiger is trying to explain his way into forgiveness, trying to salvage his image to whatever degree he can. We get it. Tiger is human. Tiger is flawed. But now, finally, inevitably, Tiger is done.