Associated Press
The golf notebook …
Tiger Woods is already a little stir-crazy. Just slightly more than two weeks after having season-ending surgery on his left knee, Woods is finding out he has more free time on his hands than he really wants.
Woods spent hours watching Wimbledon and more hours watching the Olympic trials, spreading himself out on his sofa. “I don’t like sitting around,” Woods said in a posting on his website.
But there’s not much else he can do right now. Woods said he had a couple of restless nights because of the June 24 ACL surgery when doctors also cleaned up cartilage in his left knee for the second time since mid-April and the third time in five years.
Woods won the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines with a torn ACL as well as twin stress fractures of his left tibia that happened while rehabilitating from his knee surgery after the Masters.
Woods said he’s improving.
“The good news is that my stress fractures are healing. If I hadn’t played in the U.S. Open, they would be almost fully healed by now,” he said on his website. “So the surgery was a blessing in disguise. By the time I come back, they should be fine.”
What Woods didn’t write about was the timing of his eventual comeback, which is completely up in the air.Woods’ swing coach, Hank Haney, said he expects Woods to play a couple of tournaments before the 2009 Masters ó which Woods has won four times, but only once since 2002.
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With Woods out of action, the No. 2-ranked player in the world steps back into the spotlight this week at the Scottish Open. Phil Mickelson has made no news since he drifted to 18th at the U.S. Open, except for listing his 4.55-acre Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., estate for sale with a price between $10.75 million and $12,225,876.
Mickelson is trying to get ready for next week’s British Open at Royal Birkdale.
Mickelson’s record at the British Open is his worst of the four majors ó one top 10 in 15 times, including missing the cut last year.
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Annika Sorenstam is not the defending champion at the Women’s British Open, but when she shows up at Sunningdale Golf Club this month to play in the event for the 14th time, she already has a plan.
If she wins, she’s not coming back to defend her title.
“I’m definitely stepping away from the game at the end of this season,” Sorenstam, 37, said Tuesday in a conference call about the British Open. She is retiring at the end of the year.