Tiger Woods: Tiger's Road Back to Relevance a Long One After Miserable Masters

Sunday begat a surreal scene at the Masters, and not just because Bubba Watson and Louis Oosthuizen ended up battling for the Green Jacket in what turned out to be a two-hole playoff.

No, the greater curiosity was that of a ghost floating somberly out of sight at Augusta National, one known to most as Tiger Woods.

You know, the guy who won two weeks ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The guy who everyone (myself included) proclaimed to be "back", now that his personal problems appeared to be largely in the rear view mirror. The guy who'd registered top-10 finishes in the Masters in each of the previous seven years, through good times and bad.

The guy who, for better or worse, drives the economy of golf, who makes it relevant to casual viewers well beyond the realm of PGA Tour diehards.

Yeah, he was nowhere to be found, and if he was, it was only in name. Tiger's four days at Augusta were, in totality, the worst he'd ever played there since he turned pro. All told, he finished the tournament at five over par, without finishing a round in the red.

"Good" enough for a tie for 41st place.

Tiger's frustrations with himself and his game were evident throughout. Between all the times Tiger kicked and abused his clubs, he looked more like someone laboring painfully through a task than someone enjoying his time out on the course, playing a leisurely game so commonly indulged in by people of comfortable means on lazy afternoons.

As long as Tiger's soul remains so tortured, he'll continue to struggle under the brightest lights and on the biggest stages. As long as he's grinding rather than playing for the love of the game, he'll crumble amidst the unbearable weight of expectations, both his own and the ones so often tossed upon his weary shoulders.

And, judging by Tiger's own words, it may be some time before he's finally out of the woods. From his Sunday presser, via tigerwoods.com:

"

"What's frustrating is I know what to do, and I just don't do it. I get out there and I just don't trust it at all."

"I fall back into the same old patterns again, and I just need to do more reps."

"I played the par-5s atrociously. This is a golf course you just have to dominate the par-5s, and I did not do that at all this week."

"

These aren't the easy dismissals of a confident champion-in-waiting, of someone ready to put one poor performance behind him and move on to the next opportunity.

Rather, they're the melancholy musings of a man who's still a long way from where he needs to be to succeed, who has plenty of work ahead of him before he can snap his major-less drought.

Which, by the way, will hit four years when the U.S. Open tees off in San Francisco in June.

If Tiger's most recent showing at Augusta is any indication, he'll need nothing short of a miracle to put himself in position to contend by then. Even a golfer as great (or formerly great) as Tiger can't simply brush aside a scorecard like his after having found such solace at the Masters over the years.

Then again, if there's any golfer on the planet with the talent and the experience to turn things around, it's Tiger. He may not be the young phenom he once was, but Woods is still a tremendous competitor nonetheless, one who needs just a sliver of positive daylight to rejuvenate his game.

Will he get that much? Stay tuned to find out.

Follow @J0shMart1n