Tiger Woods reaches his 40th birthday tomorrow, still recovering from a third back operation with no timetable for another golf comeback and reflective comments about ending his epic career.
Former world number one Woods has 14 major titles, four shy of the all-time record set by Jack Nicklaus, and 79 PGA victories, three off the career best held by Sam Snead.
But to become lost in the numbers is to miss the point of what Woods has meant to golf, a unique talent who in his moment might just have been the world’s greatest sport star, the first black man to win a major golf crown sparking “Tiger-mania” and generating a curiosity from fans beyond golf long after his greatest days were behind him.
There’s an old saying that life begins at 40. Time to set aside childish dreams, like matching a boyhood idol, and lift up your children as you revel in what you have achieved.
But Woods said last week he feels at times like a teen and at others far beyond his years due to injuries.
“Mentally, people who know me know I’m like a five-year-old. Physically, sometimes I feel old and sometimes I feel like a teenager,” Woods said.  
“I don’t like the polar opposites of the two. I’d like to be somewhere in the middle where I feel 40.”
Woods has not won a major title since the 2008 US Open, in which he limped through a playoff on a broken leg to beat Rocco Mediate.

NO LIGHT AT TUNNEL’S END?
He has been through four knee surgeries, three back operations and a messy sex scandal. Once-mighty shots might only be memories. Forget record runs. Just playing, let alone winning any event, seems a distant goal now.
“There’s really nothing I can look forward to, nothing I can build towards,” Woods said at his foundation’s Hero World Challenge event earlier this month. “Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t know.
“Pretty much everything beyond this will be gravy. If that’s all it entails, then I’ve had a pretty good run.”
Woods will serve as an assistant captain of the US 2016 Ryder Cup team guided by Davis Love. But he has come to grips with the idea he might never play again.
“It’s not what I want to have happen and it’s not what I’m planning on having happen, but if it does, it does. I’ve reconciled myself to it,” Woods told Time magazine.  
“Even if I don’t come back and I don’t play again, I still want to have a quality of life with my kids. I started to lose that with the other surgeries.”
He told Time that chasing Nicklaus, now 75, was about doing things at a younger age than when Nicklaus had achieved it.  
“It was all age-related,” Woods said. “To me, that was important. This guy is the best out there and the best of all time. If I can beat each age that he did it, then I have a chance at being the best.”
Nicklaus has one record, Snead another, and Arnold Palmer brought television to the sport.  
But Woods rewrote the game, helping force longer courses, boosting the price TV would pay to show golf and the fitness golfers would need to win, becoming the all-time top sports marketing pitchman before his sex scandal shattered his sponsorship supremacy.

MAJORS IN FUTURE PLANS
Nicklaus, for one, refuses to write off an 18th Woods major win, saying, “He has always been a very focused young man with a great work ethic and is tremendously talented. To count him out of that would be foolish. He certainly has a very good chance of doing that.”
While the British Open has offered up some over-40 winners in recent years, the only over-40 winner of a US major since 1999 was Vijay Singh at 41 at the 2004 PGA Championship.
And beyond age 40, only Old Tom Morris won four majors—the British Opens in 1861, 1862, 1864 and 1867, the last of them at age 46, the same as Nicklaus when he won his last at the 1986 Masters.
Think Woods might have one more still in him at age 46 at the 2022 Masters? If that sort of thing matters to him by then, well, as Nicklaus said, “to count him out of that would be foolish.”
“Where do I see myself in the next five to 10 years?” Woods said. “I’m still playing golf at the highest level and winning tournaments and major championships.”

Tiger files
Born - December 30, 1975
Birthplace - Cypress, California, USA
Height - 6-feet-1 (1.85m)
Turned Professional - 1996
Career US PGA Tour wins - 79
Major titles - 14 (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005 Masters; 2000, 2002, 2008 US Open; 2000, 2005, 2006 British Open; 1999, 2000, 2006, 2007 PGA Championship)
PGA Tour Player of the Year - 11 (1997, 1999-2003, 2005-2007, 2009, 2013)
PGA Tour Money Leader - 10 (1997, 1999-2002, 2005-2007, 2009, 2013)
Highest World Ranking - 1 (record 683 weeks)
Current World Ranking - 416


The 14 major wins of Tiger Woods
1997 Masters: The first major victory was in many ways the most sensational. A 21-year-old Woods humbled Augusta National Golf Club for a record 18-under 270 over 72 holes to win by 12 strokes over Tom Kite in the biggest blowout in Masters history. Woods’ success was quickly followed by the course being lengthened and a second cut being added. The terms “Tiger-mania” and “Tiger-proofing” were born.

1999 PGA Championship: Woods edged Spanish teen Sergio Garcia by a stroke for his second major title. Highlight reel moments at Medinah from the final round include Woods pointing at the ball as it rolls into the cup and Garcia running up the fairway and jumping in the air to see the results of a difficult shot. Woods won three majors in playoffs but this was his only one-shot regulation major win.

2000 US Open: In the most dominant performance at any major tournament, Woods won by a record 15 strokes at Pebble Beach and became the first player to finish double digits under par at 12-under par 272.

2000 British Open: Woods completed a career Grand Slam with an eight-stroke triumph at St. Andrews, the youngest to win all four majors, two years faster than idol Jack Nicklaus. He finished at 19-under par 269 at the Old Course, the lowest under-par score for any winner at any major until Jason Day won on 20-under at this year’s PGA.

2000 PGA Championship: Woods and Bob May finished deadlocked after 72 holes at 18-under par at Valhalla but Woods won a three-hole playoff to capture his fifth major title and third in a row. His birdie on the opening playoff hole was the difference as May made three pars and Woods parred the last two playoff holes. Woods became the first PGA winner since 1937 to win again the following year. Not since Ben Hogan in 1953 had a player won three majors in a year.

2001 Masters: Woods completed the “Tiger Slam” of winning four major titles in a row with a two-shot victory over David Duval at Augusta National. Chris DiMarco led after the first and second rounds but Woods shot 68 Saturday to seize the 54-hole lead by one over Phil Mickelson.

2002 Masters: Woods repeated as Masters champion, only the third back-to-back winner at Augusta after Nicklaus and Nick Faldo. Woods fired a six-under par 66 in the third round to match Retief Goosen for the 54-hole lead and shot 71 Sunday to beat the South African by three shots.

2002 US Open: Woods became the first player in 30 years to win the Masters and the US Open in the same year, joining a list to achieve the feat that included Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan and Craig Wood with a three-stroke victory over Mickelson at Bethpage Black.

2005 Masters: A dramatic final-day showdown with DiMarco ended in a playoff. One of the most memorable shots in golf history came when Woods aimed 20 feet left of the cup and used the sloping green to roll the ball into the 16th hole for a dramatic birdie. Woods would bogey 17 and 18 to fall into a playoff but birdied 18 in the playoff for his fourth Masters green jacket.

2005 British Open: Woods leads wire-to-wire at St. Andrews for his 10th major title and he completed a second career slam at age 29, the youngest ever to achieve either feat.
2006 British Open: At Royal Liverpool, Woods won his first major title since the death of his father Earl two months earlier. He finished on 18-under 270 to beat DiMarco by two strokes. Woods put his head on the shoulder of caddie Steve Williams and wept after sinking the clinching putt. Not since Tom Watson in 1983 had a player repeated as British Open champion until Woods took this 11th career major win.

2006 PGA Championship: Woods matched the Medinah course record with a 65 to share the 54-hole lead with Luke Donald then closed with a 68 to finish on 270, matching his low aggregate score record for a PGA. He became the first to win the PGA twice on the same course.

2007 PGA Championship: In extreme heat at Southern Hills, Woods shot a 63 in the second round to match the low score ever fired in any single round at any major and equal Ray Floyd’s course record. Consecutive weekend 69s were enough to hold off Woody Austin by two shots for the triumph.

2008 US Open: In an epic at Torrey Pines, Woods limped to his most recent major win on a broken left knee, defeating Rocco Mediate in sudden death with a first-hole par after an 18-hole playoff. He missed the rest of the year after knee surgery. Woods improved to 14-0 in winning majors when at least sharing the 54-hole lead, but has never won a major by coming from behind on the last day. He was beaten after sharing the 54-hole lead by South Korean Yang Yong-Eun at the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine and an infamous sex scandal erupted three months later. Knee and back operations have followed and dimmed his once-mighty game.