by Jeremy Harness & Jeff Hall

PEBBLE BEACH–It’s just simply hard to believe that after three tournaments Golf’s top star Tiger Woods had to reach up for help with a bad back and had to leave the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines just 11 holes into the tournament on Thursday before calling it a night as Woods left with lower back pain.

Woods who is a 14 time tournament winner left the event with back spasms and talk show host and golf reporter Jeremy Harness can speak from experience that he has had a bad back for five years now and that was from playing golf. The thing with Tiger with the lower back it’s a common thing especially with the PGA Tour players. They say you could play golf with a bad back that’s the way it works.

Tiger has had a bad back for quite a few years and he’s had to withdraw from quite a few tournaments but keep in mind that in 2013 after he first had his back issues he was the number one player in the game and matter of fact he was the number one PGA player of the year. One of the things that Tiger was doing was hitting the ball that put a lot more stress on the back that much harder.

The swing has effected his back as opposed to an arm, leg, or a shoulder injury the back injury is a different animal. The back requires a lot more treatment and a lot more caution it’s not something you just can’t quickly rebound from in a day or two. The recovery is a long process this is what Tiger is up against.

In the Phoenix Open Tiger had back issues during the tournament there and he shot an 82 but he missed the cut by 12 strokes so there’s a lot going on and he’s struggled with a lot of issues getting back to 2014 in chipping and short putting out of the green. Tiger has lost quite a lot of weight to ease up his back. When you lose weight you take a lot of pressure off your back, the more weight you put on the more your going to feel it.

Tiger at this point has to do what he has to do to treat his back and it had a lot to do with chipping too and a lot of that has to do with technique. He has to work on his chipping and short game whereas in 2013 it wasn’t an issue at all because he didn’t have the back issues and he was on the same page with the other golfers. He was very comfortable with chipping and doing all the things he had to do to be a successful golfer.

Jeff Hall and Jeremy Harness are covering the AT&T Pebble Beach PGA Tournament for http://www.sportsradioservice.com