Tiger silence is deafening

AMID a flurry of recent announcements about Tiger Woods, one bulletin has remained absent: how the hell is he?

We’ve heard about the inspirational role he played behind the scenes at the Ryder Cup. We’ve seen some nostalgic pictures concerning the 25th anniversary of his first victory on tour in Las Vegas.

On his website, they’ve celebrated a similar landmark for his foundation with a nice story of a boy from humble beginnings who graduated through one of its programmes and is now training to be a flight mechanic.

On Twitter and Instagram, where we usually hear his news these days, we have been informed about the first-class field that has been assembled for his 20-man invitational event in the Bahamas in December, including Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy.

There’s just one problem with all these updates. It leads us inevitably to wonder about the health of the man who is still, by miles, the biggest name in the sport. The last official statement was way back in March, a month after the horrific car accident in Los Angeles where he came close to losing his life. ‘I will be recovering at home, and working on getting stronger each day,’ the statement concluded. A couple of weeks ago, there was a heartening picture — albeit one clearly taken without permission — of him watching his son Charley practising for a junior tournament, with a club in hand.

Tiger (left), alongside his long-time girlfriend Erica, was wearing a medical sleeve on his right leg, the one that took the brunt of the punishment when his SUV careered down a bank.

The picture suggested he was able to enjoy at least a quality of life, the first item on the wishlist once the shocking photographs of the car crash emerged.

Would it really be that intrusive if we had even quarterly updates? How he’s progressing, what he’s able to do, any prospect of him picking up a golf club? To be fair, it’s never been the Tiger way.

Instead, we have had snippets from his mates on tour, usually centred on generic sentiments like ‘he’s progressing well’ and ‘concentrating on his recovery’.

For the millions of his fans starved of information from the horse’s mouth, the wait shouldn’t be that long now for something more meaningful. Pencil in his event in the Bahamas.

Tiger will surely want to show his face, do a bit of TV commentary and demonstrate he is now firmly on the mend. A couple of months shy of his 46th birthday, it would be an ominous sign regarding any foreseeable prospect of a return to tournament play if he wasn’t able to make that date.