Sunday 14 June 2015 22:04, UK
Former world No 1 Greg Norman believes history is against Tiger Woods ever recapturing the sort of form which helped the American collect 14 major titles between 1997 and 2008.
Woods has struggled on the PGA Tour for much of the past nine months and, at Muirfield Village last weekend, carded the worst round of his professional career – an 85.
The 39-year-old, who underwent back surgery last year, is no longer inside the world’s top 175 and Norman says "he has a mountain to climb”.
Norman, a two-time winner of The Open, said: "It's a massive effort, mentally and physically, for him to get himself out of this hole he's in.
"The more he shoots 85, or extraordinary high numbers, the harder it is for him to get out of that hole.
"He's gone through major swing changes in the past. But for those swing changes, his body was a lot younger.
“When you do make a change, you have to hit a lot of golf balls. You have to get the old swing thoughts out of your mind and the new swing thoughts in.
“And that's just a lot of repetition and hitting, hitting and hitting. Your body doesn't recover quickly, or as well, like it used to when you were in your 20s and 30s. He's got that mountain to climb."
Woods will be in action next week as the second major of the year, the US Open, and he will play alongside Rickie Fowler and Louis Oosthuizen at Chambers Bay.
