Puskas: Tiger no longer lurking for the weekend

Jack Nicklaus is too classy to have openly rooted against Tiger Woods as the latter chased the Golden Bear’s record of 18 major championships.

Nicklaus isn’t Mercury Morris and his former Miami Dolphins teammates, who break out the champagne and party like it’s 1972 any time an unbeaten NFL team’s quest for perfection ends.

It’s silly to think Jack’s legacy would be diminished a bit even if Woods’ career hadn’t careened off the rails starting six years ago. It has always been the Golden Bear’s followers who were most protective of his 18 major victories as Woods piled up 14 of them from 1997-2008.

But barring a completely improbable turnaround, they need not worry about Tiger winning four or five more majors.

It’s hard to win a golf tournament — let alone a major — when your game no longer lends itself to four-day weekends.

These days, Tiger is free to do whatever he wants most Saturdays and Sundays because he isn’t making the cut much.

When an NBA, NFL or MLB team is eliminated from the playoffs, the running joke is that the players are ready to play golf. So what does Woods do when he misses the cut and has the rest of the weekend off?

Wait. Never mind. Let’s withdraw that question.

The only reason Woods played Saturday in the British Open at The Old Course at St. Andrews was because Friday’s second round was interrupted by torrential rains.

Woods didn’t even need to come back the next day, but he did so to make it official and finished with rounds of 76 and 75 to miss the cut at 7-over par 151 — the worst British Open performance of his career.

Just seven players scored higher than Woods. Eight amateurs finished ahead of him and five of them did what the man formerly known as the best player in golf couldn’t. They made the cut.

How bad is Woods’ game? ESPN analyst Paul Azinger referred to Tiger as a “hack” during the first round Thursday.

“It’s hard to watch the best player of this generation be a middle-of-the-pack hack,” Azinger said.

Harsh? Perhaps. Obviously, Woods is not a weekend hacker from the local municipal course. But consider how great he was just a few years ago, when his mere presence in one of the final groups — sporting his usual Sunday red — made his so-called rivals shrink in the moment.

And even if those other players didn’t leave putts short or hit into the rough with under the pressure of Tiger lurking in contention, Woods often was so dominant he’d overtake them anyway.

What happened to him?

It can’t be as simple as bad swing mechanics or non-activating glutes. Something is going on inside his head and it isn’t good. It could be tied to his fall from grace off the course.

Whatever it is, the result has been most precipitous fall in the history of modern sports. You watch this Tiger Woods play and you almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

Write Vindicator Sports Editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @EdPuskas_Vindy.