Tiger Woods is done!

I had to swallow an incredibly sour pill this past weekend. It’s a pill that I’ve long known was coming, but one that I’ve prevented myself from having to face. Us diehard sports fans don’t like to be wrong – especially when it involves athletes that we’ve rooted for over a span of two decades.

But here goes – it’s time for me to take my medicine once and for all. Tiger Woods is done.

He’s finished. He’s no longer elite. Heck, I can even go a step deeper and proclaim that he’s no longer relevant in the conversation of the best players in the world.

There’s too much pulling against him, and there are too many dominant young players on the tour.

His peak days are finished, and he probably won’t ever win another major championship.

Gosh, I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. I really hope you guys know how hard it is for me to type these things that I’m typing right now. It’s Casey’s Corner torture in its purest form.

Tiger Woods is my all-time favorite athlete. He’s one of the two or three guys that have made me the avid sports fan that I am today.

The term we often use is ‘man-crush.’ I have more than that for Tiger Woods. It’s not as creepy as I’m making it sound. I just hold him in such high regard because his ascent came at the time when I started becoming interested in sports. He was my first true favorite athlete, and without his dominance in my childhood, I likely would not have chosen the career that I have chosen today.

He’s just must-see TV. Straight up. When he’s on, you just have to watch. The energy, the enthusiasm and the overall excitement that he carries are unmatched by any other athlete within any other sport in the world.

When Tiger is in contention, I’m watching with my eyes glued to the TV set. When he’s out of the mix, I’m not watching at all but are instead just peeking at the leaderboard when the round is done.

Of course, ‘Golf Guy’ likes to chirp that sports media heads talk about Tiger too much. He likes to tout that Woods has actually ruined the sport because his success/failure are always the story of a tournament, regardless of who is winning the tournament on a given week.

But pay no mind to ‘Golf Guy.’ More often than not, he’s a booger-eating, beer guzzling hack who plays golf four days a week, but can’t break 90 no matter how hard he tries.

‘Golf Guy’ is just jealous that one man can so dominant and blessed in the game. Deep down, ‘Golf Guy’ wishes that he were Tiger Woods. That he’s not capable of being anything close to Woods is why the resentment is as strong as it is.

The TV ratings show that Tiger Woods is bigger than the sport of golf. They also show that there are far more people who are only interested in the sport when Tiger is in the field and especially when he’s in contention.

But in the past several years, those moments have been few and far between, as Tiger has battled a litany of problems.

Of course, we all know about the marriage problems, adultery and all of the other things that have tripped up Woods in his personal life. Those things have been messy and well-publicized, making Tiger the butt of countless jokes and the subject of tons of shorts on comedy shows around the world.

But on the course, he’s been equally troubled.

Back issues have limited Woods’ ability to hit the golf ball as far as he did when he was in his 20s. Without that distance, Woods’ inaccuracy is now a bigger problem, because he’s now hitting longer iron shots out of the rough than normal.

That, alone, isn’t good on one’s back because of the torque and stress it takes to hit a golf ball 200 yards through weeds. But it’s also not good for one’s ability to win a golf tournament, either because, obviously, the longer a shot is, the more difficult it is to pull off.

Woods has had his back operated on, and he says that it’s no longer an issue. But a few holes into his round this past week at Torrey Pines, there he was again clutching at it in pain, showing the entire world that those problems may have only just begun.

As-if the health wasn’t bad enough, Woods is also enduring yet another swing change, which has his game in complete disarray – especially in the short game.

Around the greens, Tiger Woods is a mere mortal. His touch for chipping has betrayed him, and he fluffs, blades and whiffs on even the simplest shots.

For those not familiar with golf, ‘fluffing’ and ‘blading’ are not things that professional golfers do. They are things that you or I do when we play golf. You know that shot where you hit the ground and the ball flops 20 feet in the air and falls about five yards forward? That’d a fluff. Know that shot where you hit the center of the ball and it skips about 80 yards like a line drive in baseball? That’s a blade.

Both are incredibly uncharacteristic of ANY pro golfer – much less the best pro golfer of all-time.

So all of these things added together with the fact that he’s 39 and no longer a spring chicken, I had to finally swallow the pill this week and admit to myself that the best of Tiger Woods is gone.

It wasn’t easy, but acceptance is the first step toward recovery.

I can’t stand to see any more missed cuts or rounds in the 80s with high expectations.

It’s time I lower ‘em and say that my man crush is done.