Tiger Woods’ withdrawal from own event is golf great’s latest bizarre episode

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — We’re running out of bizarre scenes and circumstances with Tiger Woods.

For more than two decades, Woods wowed the world with what he was able to do on the golf course, winning 15 major championships, 82 tournaments overall and dominating the sport like no one ever has.

Now, Woods has morphed into a sad sideshow, a space that makes you wonder why he keeps putting himself through this at age 48 and seemingly with a new health issue every time he turns up for a tournament.

The latest drama involving Woods featured him being driven off the course in the middle of his Genesis Invitational second round Friday at Riviera Country Club and withdrawing after what was described as an “illness.’’

What ensued from there was, quite frankly, bizarre — even by Woods’ standards.

A Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance backed up to a service entrance of the clubhouse and sat there for about 45 minutes before someone emerged from the clubhouse and said, “He’s not coming out.’’

With that, an empty stretcher was carried from inside the building and slipped into the ambulance before it drove away, along with two fire trucks.

A short time after that, Woods’ manager and business partner, Rob McNamara, issued a statement, saying that Woods “started feeling some flu-like symptoms last night, woke up this morning, they were worse than the night previous. He had a little bit of a fever and … was better during the warm-up, but then when he got out there and was walking and playing, he started feeling dizzy. Ultimately the doctors are saying he’s got some type of flu and that he was dehydrated. He’s been treated with an IV bag and he’s doing much, much better.’’

Shortly after McNamara’s statement was released, Woods finally emerged from the locker room at 3:45 p.m. local time and gingerly got into the passenger seat of a red SUV and was driven off. Whether he, as the tournament host with his foundation, sticks around through the weekend to present the winner the trophy is not known.

McNamara clarified that Woods’ issues on Friday have nothing to do with the structural issues he has been dealing with since his back and foot were surgically fused.

“Not physical at all,’’ McNamara said. “His back’s fine. It was all medical illness, dehydration, which is now the symptoms are reversing themselves now that he’s had an IV.’’

The good news is that this latest drama had nothing to do with Woods’ previous physical ailments, that there were no apparent setbacks.

The more sobering news is this: Since Woods crashed his SUV at a high rate of speed into trees the day after the 2021 Genesis Invitational, he’s played in just six 72-hole PGA Tour events and finished just two of them — with three withdrawals and a missed cut accounting for the other four.

This has become Woods’ sad reality now.

And it makes you wonder why he keeps coming back. With all the wins and the countless hundreds of millions he’s made he doesn’t need it anymore. But what surely tantalizes Woods is that he’s still able to hit the ball flush, can still putt and still do the many of things he always used to.

Sometimes.

It’s clear he still burns to compete and doesn’t want to let go of that.

Woods looks like an aging star who’s trying to convince himself he can still win — even though he hasn’t won since his historic 2019 Masters victory.

Woods, who was playing alongside Gary Woodland and Justin Thomas, didn’t look right during the six-plus holes he played on Friday.

He curiously used one of the portable toilets while playing the fifth hole before putting out, which is unusual. He then went back in again after finishing the fifth hole before teeing off on the sixth.

He appeared to grimace when he hit his tee shot on the seventh hole, as if he’d hit a poor shot, but the ball landed in the middle of the fairway. That ended up being his last swing of the tournament as a tournament rules official was called over with a cart to drive him to the clubhouse, where the ambulance drama was about to begin.

“I saw it, he obviously wasn’t himself, just didn’t look right,’’ Woodland said. “I saw that before the round started. It sucks. Obviously, everything’s better with him there and for him for his first tournament back and he couldn’t come out and finish the way he wanted to, that sucks for all of us.

“He just didn’t look right. He was quieter. Obviously, it’s cut day, we’re all trying to play well, especially the whole group’s trying to focus and pick ourselves up and play well. I feel bad for him. He definitely was trying to fight through it and I hope he’s all right.’’