Tiger Woods unlikely to be back this year, says coach Butch Harmon

By Oliver Brown Published: 9:39PM GMT twenty February 2010

Sorry, sorry, sorry: Tiger Woods addresses his entertainment on Friday Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The thought that Tiger Woods could miss the Masters for the initial time as a professional, rendered all as well genuine by his televised acknowledgment that he has no thought when he will lapse to the sport, is sufficient to expel a resounding dejection opposite Magnolia Drive.

But Butch Harmon, as the manager who guided the universe No1 to a little of his majority fatiguing vital victories, believes the dour being of his deficiency could last all year.

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Woodss heartless self-excoriation on Friday triggered a 36-hour discuss on American radio as to either his problems lengthened over a treatable obsession to a basin that could take months, even years, to resolve.

Certainly, the dates of Apr 8-11 appear to be noted in his diary for serve rehabilitation, not 4 days of golf in Georgia. As he walked out of the Sawgrass discussion room with his behind to the cameras, he put his hands to his face, assumingly wiping afar tears.

"Mentally, obviously, hes hurting," Harmon said.

"Its going to be a prolonged highway behind for him. I dont think any of us should design to see him on a golf march any time soon, given emotionally, I dont think ruin be there.

"I privately do not think he will fool around this year. I have zero to bottom that on alternative than I hold it would be really formidable if he is frank about this routine of healing and removing to the roots of his problem.

"Rehab takes a prolonged time. It takes a lot of perseverance. It takes a lot of soul-searching. It only doesnt finish in a month. Whether he plays again this year stays to be seen. But I do not think we should be astounded if he doesnt."

Quite how most faith should be given to Harmons foresee is open to question: he was the one who, after all, likely last month that Woods would be behind in time for the Florida pitch of the PGA Tour in March.

But the plain-spoken 56 year-old does have first-hand believe of the extremes of his former pupils behaviour, from the frighteningly single-minded office of vital triumphs to the brutally succinct stop of his services in 2002.

Harmon was transposed by Hank Haney and has remained a absolute voice from the sidelines ever since, claiming in 2004 that Woods was "in denial" about the state of his diversion after dual years but a vital underneath a opposite coach.

He had reason to be bitter, as the man who had resolutely remodelled the pitch of Woods in 1997, when the condemned figure of currently was still a immature prodigy, uninformed from violence the margin by an startling twelve strokes in the Masters.

Few who stop the refreshing strut of that feat could destroy to be changed by the deplorable tinge of Fridays radio address, or by the idea of lost innocence. Never again, one senses, will we listen to Woods mutter, as he did to afterwards caddie Fluff Cowan in 1997 when eighteen underneath down the stretch: "Lets go for 20."

Never again will we see him celebrate, as he did with stream caddie Steve Williams in 2005 after holing a thinly slice from an all-but-impossible position, similar to a quarterback who had only thrown for the Super Bowl-winning touchdown.

Harmon said: "Hes going to take a lot of criticism, hes going to get a lot of protesters and things entrance from the art studio that hes not in the habit of to.

"He has the strongest mind in the story of the diversion given Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan. Mentally, hes probably clever sufficient to hoop that. But I dont think he can overcome this with the open notice of who he is. I think ruin regularly be shop-worn that way."

The most appropriate that might be hoped is that Woods can still, should he beauty the Masters subsequent year, conjure up moments of might in the difficulty of that thinly slice in 2005, the year of his last immature jacket, when the round teetered over the crater of the 16th only prolonged sufficient to arrangement the Nike swoosh to the examination world. Nike, at least, are still station by their man, however prolonged the tour back.