L.A. PARKER: Lexi Thompson's first major win adds juice, depth to LPGA

The Trentonian—April 7, 2014

Of course interest remains for The Masters, but without Tiger Woods this rite of spring will not attract the attention the world’s No. 1 can.

Golf announcers and so-called experts are absolutely misguided to think that some player will come along to make us forget about Woods or break his marks.

Not going to happen. We will never again see another player with Woods’s ability to polarize and mesmerize.

Plus, Woods, if he can get healthy, still owns a shot at both Sam Snead’s PGA Tour wins (82) and Jack Nicklaus’s 18 majors. The current crop of professional golfers are not exactly formidable opponents.

Look who’s winning tournaments. Better yet, look who’s losing tournaments.

Woods owns 79 PGA Tour wins. If he gets his back situation figured out, then Snead’s mark appears reasonable. Nicklaus? Maybe.

Here’s the skinny on Woods’s injury, provided by Frank Cammisa, M.D. Chief of the Spine Service at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Cammisa responded by email.

Describing Woods’s injury: “The injury was a herniated disc, which is a fragment of cartilage that compresses or “pinches” the nerve. From the reports on his website, he underwent a microdiscectomy also known as a microsurgical discectomy, which is a minimally invasive surgery to remove the disc fragment that is pinching the nerve.”

Describing the risk of playing through the injury: “If Mr. Woods continued to play, he would have continued pain. There is a possibility of developing weakness into specific muscles of the leg. He was prudent to take care of the problem, heal, rehabilitate and enable himself to return to his level of play.”

This article originally appeared on trentonian.com.