By
Fred Altvater on Wednesday, September 17
th 2014
The Back 9 Report reported on the current medical conditions of Jason Dufner, Tiger Woods and Greg Norman on Tuesday.
The last time we saw Jason Dufner, he withdrew from the PGA Championship. He said then that he would not enter another golf tournament until he could freely swing a golf club without neck pain.
He must be improving, because he announced this week that he intends to play in the Perth International tournament in Australia, Oct 23-26.
Dufner finished runner-up in Perth in 2012. He will be joined in the field by Frenchman, Victor Dubission, and Aussies, Geoff Ogilvy, Steven Bowditch and Brett Rumsford.
Tiger Woods talked with the media on Monday at Isleworth Golf Club in Orlando announcing Hero Moto Corp as the new sponsor for the his World Challenge event. Tiger has been recuperating after tweaking his ailing back at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August. He missed the PGA Championship, the FedEx Cup playoffs and will miss the Ryder Cup.
When asked about the status of his rehabilitation, Tiger reported that he is progressing according to schedule. He has not swung a club, but has been doing a lot of physical fitness and is regaining his strength and endurance. He expects to start hitting shots in October which gives him two months to prepare for the Hero World Challenge at the beginning of December.
Greg Norman apparently escaped serious injury when he suffered a nasty incident involving a chain saw while trimming brush at his Florida property.
The saw became entangled in a limb and pulled his left hand into the spinning chain. It sliced his left hand just below where his watch would have been. No nerve damage was done only muscular and the hopes are for a full recovery for the White Shark.
Hopefully the injury will not affect his preparations to begin his new job as the lead golf analyst for Fox Sports when they begin their coverage of USGA tournaments in 2015.
Norman has taken his near brush with tragedy in stride. He was cracking jokes and posting pictures of his pink foam cast on Instagram.
He was very lucky. Golfers should not fool themselves and think they can do real manual labor.
Chain Saws do not normally give mulligans.