Good news for Tiger Woods: Turning 40 is ‘more speed bump than roadblock’

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ESPN’s Jason Sobel talks to several of golf’s elder statesmen about turning 40, most of whom concur: It’s “more speed bump than roadblock…What most believe it’s not [Tiger] Woods’ age that will hinder a comeback as much as his health. After all, no professional golfer could continue playing competitively after three back operations, right? Wrong -- and Fuzzy Zoeller is living proof.”

“Just as Tiger was in a hurry to win majors, it turns out he also was in a rush to reach middle age,” Christine Brennan of USA Today writes. “Not by choice, of course, but it appears to have been inevitable, considering how he lived his life outside of golf, how he contorted his body to make a golf ball do what he wanted it to do (putting tremendous pressure on a back that eventually couldn’t take it anymore), how he drove himself so hard so fast that he has driven himself right out of the game he once dominated, at least for the time being…Then again, Tiger should look at the bright side. At least his turbulent 30s are over.”

“‘Where do I see myself in the next five to 10 years? I am still playing golf at the highest level and winning tournaments and major championships.’ For now that seems far too lofty a goal but, if anyone has earned the right to golfing dreams, Tiger Woods is that man,” Ewan Murray of the Guardian writes.

“If he can feel like a proper, fit 40-year-old then the history of golf shows that his career does not have to be over,” James Corrigan of the Telegraph writes.