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Michael Jordan says 'tired' Tiger Woods wants to retire, but can't
Michael Jordan has painted a bleak picture of Tiger Woods' life, saying he thinks the 14-time major winner wants to retire but doesn't know how.
A longtime friend of the golfer, the former basketball star said Woods was "tired" and lamented the fact he had no "companion" to make him happy.
"I think he's tired," Jordan told ESPN. "I think he really wishes he could retire, but he doesn't know how to do it yet, and I don't think he wants to leave it where it is right now. If he could win a major and walk away, he would, I think."
However, Jordan thinks the chances of future success is slim. "The thing is I love him so much that I can’t tell him, 'You’re not gonna be great again'," he told the broadcaster.
Woods has not played since August when he underwent another "microdiscectomy" operation on his spine.
"What does he do every day?" asked Jordan, who struggled with his own retirement from basketball at first. "I don’t know. I haven’t the slightest idea. I do not know."
The golfer answered that question in December when he talked to journalists at a charity event in the Bahamas. "I am really good at playing video games,” Woods said. “That’s basically how I pass my time."
He also hinted at the time that the end of his career might be not far off. "I’ve had a pretty good career," he said. "For my 20 years out here, I think I’ve achieved a lot. If that’s all it entails, I've had a pretty good run."
Jordan believes the golfer's divorce with Elin Nordegren, which followed claims of multiple affairs after a car crash outside his home, still hurts Woods.
"That bothers him more than anything," Jordan said. "It looms. It's in his mind. It's a ship he can't right and he's never going to."
It has been more than a year since Woods split with his most recent longterm partner, Lindsey Vonn, and Jordan believes the 40-year-old needs to find happiness in his personal life.
"He has … no companion,’" Jordan said. "He has to find that happiness within his life, that's the thing that worries me. I don’t know if he can find that type of happiness. He's gonna have to trust somebody."