When will Tiger return? As one who lost his own father in recent years, my answer would be “When he’s good and ready.” But the golfing media is slowly building itself into a frenzy.

“When will The Great One return?”

Most speculation centers around Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial, where Tiger has won three times, but at least one writer is worrying that Tiger will break his “consecutive majors streak.” It seems that Jack Nicklaus (who else) currently holds the record for playing in the most consecutive majors. And if Tiger misses this year’s Open, he’ll suffer a setback in his quest for yet another of Jack’s records.

Of course, even if he plays in this year’s Open, he still has another twenty five years to go before reaching Jack’s 146 consecutive starts.

Hey. Give Tiger a break. Let the guy take his time.

Speculation is rising that Tiger will make his first appearance since the death of his father at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial tournament. Fox News has a report.

Tiger Woods says that he will take an extended leave of absence from the PGA Tour while his father battles cancer. It is possible that he will not play another event until the US Open.

Tiger currently is in New Zealand for the wedding of his caddy Steve Williams. He is also scheduled to take part in a charity car race there.

Woods said, however, that he definitely will play in the US Open at Winged Foot in June.

While his father’s illness is an extraordinary circumstance, I believe that the golf world should get used to Tiger taking long stretches off. He’s in a position where he can afford to play only in those tournaments that interest him. He could play in the four majors, his own tournament, plus a couple of others that he either likes or that he is contractually obligated to play in. He doesn’t need to play in the PGA required minimum. He’s not going to need their retirement plan, and he doesn’t need to be a member to play in tournaments—the sponsors will give him an exemption.

The Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson uses Aaron Baddeley’s first PGA Tour victory to bring up the old question of who will challenge Tiger.

Baddeley, Charles Howell, Justin Rose, Ty Tyron, Casey Wittenberg ... Sergio Garcia—have in the past been pretenders to the throne. And each year there is a new crop. This round includes JB Holmes, Camillo Villegas and ... Sergio Garcia.

The answer, of course, is none of these. The real challenge is coming from Tour veterans like Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, et. al. The older guys were, I think, shocked by the seeming ease with which Tiger won during the opening of his career. And the best of those tour vets have stepped up their games.

And Tiger isn’t dominating the way he once did.

I’m not a big fan of Tiger Woods (he never seems like he’s having any fun out there), but a bit in the Sport Telegraph titled “ Could Woods become just another middle-aged bogeyman?” is just ridiculous. The guy fails to win a Masters and the next thing you knw, he’s a has-been:

Johnny Miller believes that Woods’s putting stroke might be prone to break down in middle-age, just as putting problems eventually got to nearly all the great players with the exception of Nicklaus. The forthcoming majors will further test Miller’s argument. It is a theory that is gaining credence after bad putting cost Tiger the 2005 US Open and the 2006 Masters. In all his previous career I can only recall the putter being a problem at Birkdale in 1998.