By Mark Lamport-Stokes
Fri Apr 4, 2014 6:59pm EDT
<span id="articleText"><span id="midArticle_start"/> (Reuters) - Tiger Woods could be sidelined from competitive golf for at least three months after undergoing back surgery, casting doubt over his participation in the June 12-15 U.S. Open, say several leading sports surgeons.
<span id="midArticle_1"/>The world number one, whose back pain surfaced last year and intensified this season, will miss the Masters next week for the first time in his career after being advised by his doctors on Monday to have a microdiscectomy in Park City, Utah.
<span id="midArticle_2"/>Woods, whose back problems forced him to retire from last month's Honda Classic before he skipped the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his traditional Masters warm-up event, has been told by his doctors that he will miss "several upcoming tournaments" during his rehabilitation.
<span id="midArticle_3"/>His surgery involved the removal of herniated disc material that pressed on a nerve root or the spinal cord.
<span id="midArticle_4"/>"In general, it takes six weeks for the soft tissues to heal, even from the microdiscectomy surgery," Michael Leighton, a surgeon at the Palm Beach Orthopaedic Institute in Florida, told Reuters by telephone on Friday.
<span id="midArticle_5"/>"Tiger certainly can be working his short game sooner than that, probably after three or four weeks at the latest.
<span id="midArticle_6"/>"But it will take him six weeks before he is ready to start swinging a club with his usual ability. He will probably be ready to play somewhere around three months after his surgery."
<span id="midArticle_7"/>An absence from competition of that length would rule Woods out of the year's second major, the U.S. Open to be played at Pinehurst, North Carolina in mid-June.
<span id="midArticle_8"/>David Geier, an orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist based in Charleston, South Carolina, predicted that Woods could be out of competitive golf for up to four months.
<span id="midArticle_9"/>"You never know for sure how it will take, and sometimes it depends on how long the pressure on the nerve lasted," said Geier who like Leighton has also not worked with Woods.
<span id="midArticle_10"/>"It depends on exactly what he had done but if it was just a single-level, herniated disc where there was just one disc causing pressure on the nerve roots and there were no other issues, I would say he will be out for three to four months.
<span id="midArticle_11"/>"Some of that, of course, will depend on how quickly he gets his strength back and how quickly his pain goes away."
<span id="midArticle_12"/>PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS
<span id="midArticle_13"/>While recovery times differ for individuals based on many physiological factors, neurosurgeon Charles Rich, who operated on Woods, has said the 14-times major champion will begin intensive rehabilitation within a week.
<span id="midArticle_14"/>Following further assessment, Woods could begin chipping and putting in three weeks with the aim of returning to competition "sometime this summer", according to Rich.
<span id="midArticle_15"/>"Chipping and putting do not require much twisting, so this is possible," Selene Parekh, an associate professor of surgery in the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University, told Reuters.
<span id="midArticle_0"/>"However full swings will not be possible until his back muscles and core muscles have been strengthened and that can take between six and 10 weeks. Overall, I think he will be out of competition for four to six months."
<span id="midArticle_1"/>Woods's lengthy history of injury began with a troublesome left knee, first operated on when he was a freshman at Stanford University in 1994. Three more operations on that knee have followed.
<span id="midArticle_2"/>He has also suffered injuries to his ankle and neck, his right and left Achilles tendons and fractures in his leg, which he defiantly played through on the way to victory at the 2008 U.S. Open after a 19-hole playoff against Rocco Mediate.
<span id="midArticle_3"/>Though Woods has missed two British Opens, one U.S. Open and one PGA Championship since 2008 because of injuries, surgeons believe that his long-term prognosis looks relatively bright.
<span id="midArticle_4"/>"Tiger took the long-term view of where he is going to be by having the spine surgery now," Leighton said. "He will be over that and all the other injuries are now really behind him.
<span id="midArticle_5"/>"He has had a successful ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) construction, he has had a successful Achilles (surgery) and the other injuries are things he has worked out from a therapy and training perspective.
<span id="midArticle_6"/>"The main issue for him aged 38 is that he is still battling against guys who are 23, 24, 25 who are chasing the dream. Those guys are in good shape and they have the skills that do start to compare with where Tiger is, or was."
<span id="midArticle_7"/>Woods, who triumphed five times on the PGA Tour in 2013 but failed to play his best at the majors, has not clinched a grand slam title since his playoff win at the 2008 U.S. Open.
<span id="midArticle_8"/>He has long targeted the record 18 majors piled up by his childhood idol Jack Nicklaus and must now deal with a bad back, the bane of many golfers who have suffered ailments from the game's repetitive twisting and torqueing pressure.
<span id="midArticle_9"/>"A study came out showing that over 90 percent of athletes with microdiscectomy can return to their pre-injury, elite levels," Parekh said. "His long-term prognosis from the back is good."
<span id="midArticle_10"/>(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Gene Cherry)
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