Faldo, Nantz finally talk Tiger Woods on CBS

January 30 -- It didn’t take long for the CBS Sports golf team to dissect the whole Tiger Woods situation.

Saturday’s airing of this week’s Farmers Insurance Open may be CBS’ first PGA Tour broadcast of the season, but it’s not like the rest of the world hasn’t analyzed Woods’ bad behavior, or forecast his eventual return, ad nauseam.

Anyone seen Tiger? “One player not here this week and on an indefinite leave of absence is Tiger Woods,” Jim Nantz solemnly declared when CBS came on the air after 3 p.m. Boston golf time.

Really? Didn’t Sports Illustrated’s Alan Shipnuck tweet that he watched Tiger eagle the 13th on Torrey Pines’ South Course Friday?

Nantz and fellow analyst Nick Faldo pontificated about what Woods might face upon his return.
Where’s Tiger’s aura? Gone will be “his presence, his aura,” Faldo predicted.

Colin Montgomerie beat Faldo to that insight, when he claimed earlier this month that Tiger had lost his “mystique.”
“He had that magnetism, the power from the crowd...and television to elevate his game,” Faldo continued. “He had the game of golf literally in the palm of his hand.”

All that will be history, Faldo stated.

“Now, when Tiger heads to the tee, he’s going to a totally different environment,” Faldo noted. “He doesn’t know what to expect, he doesn’t know how people are going to react.”

Excellent point -- if a gazillion people hadn’t already made it.

Tee it up. Despite Woods’ extreme sensitivity to comments, let alone criticism, Faldo believes it’s in the world’s best golfer’s interest to get back to the course.

“He needs to get back on the golf course,” Faldo said, “it’s where his whole career has been created....He has to let his golf clubs do the talking.”

With no word from Woods since his online “infidelity” mea culpa in December, it would be refreshing for someone to do some chatting.

A tradition like no other. For what it’s worth (which is about as much as anyone else’s prognostication, so next to nothing), Nantz believes Woods will return in April for the Masters (“a tradition like no other” -- yup, Nantz actually intoned, practically with head bowed and hands in prayer position, that nauseating trope).

For this, CBS reportedly gagged its talking heads? In the network’s defense, what else is there to say?

The PGA Tour is moving along without Tiger Woods and it may have to do the same without John Daly. Read about how Daly may be retiring from golf -- or hyping his new reality show on the Golf Channel.