Tiger Woods taking doctors' advice
not to fly, not to travel

Tiger Woods has explained via a teleconference that his doctors have advised him to avoid subjecting his reconstructed left knee to travel, meaning he won't appear at Congressional this week.
"I would love to be there. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make it," said the 32-year-old Woods, who had a new ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) constructed a week ago using a piece of tendon from his right hamstring.
"Flying, unfortunately, swells up my leg pretty good. When I flew home from the procedure, it ballooned up a little bit. So my doctors advised me to lay low and stay away from planes. But who knows? I don't really listen to doctors all that well anyway."
Woods ignored the recommendations of his physicians by competing in and winning the U.S. Open three weeks ago, overcoming tremendous pain caused by a pair of stress fractures that occurred in the leg when Woods attempted to tighten the joint by pushing the muscle groups around it to the limit.
"People have played without ACLs and been very successful. Downhill skiers ski without ACLs, but they've got extreme-sized glutes and hamstrings, and that's their checking mechanism," said Woods, who isn't expected to return until the Buick Invitational in late January.
"I tried to do the same thing. That's one of the reasons I worked out as hard as I did to try to develop those particular muscle groups.
"That surgery I had after the Masters was to get me through the rest of the '08 season and then have [the ACL reconstruction] done after the '08 season. But, as you know, I developed stress fractures and decided to bag it for the year.
"Basically, my left knee's been sore for 10, 12 years, so it will be nice to finally have a healthy leg. The doctors have assured me that my long-term health will be a heck of a lot better than it's been over the past decade, so I'm really looking forward to that."
In the interim, golf will be left without the player who has personified the game for last decade. This week, that void will be keenly felt at Congressional, where only seven of the game's top 30 players are in the 120-man field.
During the teleconference, Woods did not question the many absences among the game's top-12 players, including Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh.
Last year's inaugural event featured a much stronger field (which included Mickelson, Singh, Geoff Ogilvy, Scott and Rose), though organizers had just 112 days to prepare for the new tournament and Old Blue's greens lacked their current combination of speed and purity.