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No wise crack: Tiger Woods makes ‘glute activation’ a thing

ByPhil Watson|
Feb 5, 2015; La Jolla, CA, USA; Tiger Woods (center) is escorted off the course with caddie Joe LaCava (one from left) after withdrawing from the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course after only his 12th hole of play. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 5, 2015; La Jolla, CA, USA; Tiger Woods (center) is escorted off the course with caddie Joe LaCava (one from left) after withdrawing from the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course after only his 12th hole of play. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

For the third time in his last eight starts, Tiger Woods withdrew from a tournament, leaving the Farmers Insurance Open after just 11 holes.

Tiger Woods’ stay at Torrey Pines was a short one, as he withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open Thursday after completing just 11 holes.

The official reason is a back injury.

But the real story was a problem with his glutes that Woods said was spreading into his lower back.

“It’s just my glutes are shutting off,” Woods said, per CBS Sports. “Then they don’t activate and then … it goes into my lower back. So, I tried to activate my glutes as best I could, in between, but they just never stayed activated.”

Does this mean we can list the real reason for his withdrawal as “deactivated butt”?

In 304 career starts, Woods now has eight withdrawals, but three of those have been in his last eight events. Counting missed cuts, Woods has played four complete rounds just twice in the last 16½ months.

The problem was getting so severe that Woods was unable to pick up his tees after driving, with playing partner Billy Horschel giving Tiger some assistance with that task.

The Twitterverse erupted with hot takes on the new term Woods put into the lexicon.

Yes, the former longtime world No.1 left himself wide open to be the butt of a lot of jokes, to be sure.

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Oh, wait.

Woods’ next scheduled event is the Honda Classic at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., at the end of this month.

He fell to No. 56 in the World Golf Ranking this week and will drop further after the WD at Torrey Pines.

That’s an issue because only players in the top 50 of the ranking are invited to the World Golf Championship Cadillac Championship at Doral next month.

Woods said Wednesday (per ESPN.com) that he was just focused on preparing for the Masters in April, but that was before his balky back flared up again.

Now he might find himself outside on his butt looking in again when the major championships come around this year.

Woods is second all-time with 14 major championship victories, but he’s been stuck on that number—four behind Jack Nicklaus—since defeating Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff at the U.S. Open, coincidentally at Torrey Pines, in 2008.

Two days after winning that title, Woods underwent knee surgery and missed the rest of the season.

Since then, Tiger’s best finish in a major was second in the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National in Minnesota, when Yang Yong-eun of South Korea ran down Tiger on the final day, marking the first time Woods had ever lost a major when leading after 54 holes.

Woods did not play the Masters or U.S. Open last year while recovering from back surgery. He finished 69th at The Open Championship and missed the cut at the PGA.

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