His friends are concerned and understandably so. Notah Begay, the former PGA Tour pro who roomed with Woods when they in college, actually fixed him up with his new coach, Chris Como. One of the main reasons for doing so is because Como is a biomechanics expert, a coach with an emphasis on protecting the body’s stress points from the wholly unnatural process of a golf swing.

Well, 47 holes into the new season - the season that was going to be “healthy” and thus so different from 2014, when he underwent surgery to remove part of his spine - and the body is plainly stressed and not working. Woods was two-over at the time of his exit. He was playing awfully and it was hard to tell at that stage whether the grimaces were born more out of discomfort or disgust. Looking on in his day job as an analyst for the Golf Channel, Begay sounded utterly bemused.

"It begs some very, very difficult questions in terms of how he is going to approach his game at this point,” Begay said. “In his last eight tournaments, he has more missed cuts and withdrawals than he does finished events, much less getting into contention.”

There was no arguing with Begay’s stats - this was his third withdrawal in those eight starts and the fifth time he has failed to make the weekend in that woeful run. And he was only still teeing it up on the Saturday and Sunday at his own tournament in December, the Hero World Challenge, because there was no cut in the 18-man invitational.

^{Hurting: Tiger Woods is driven away from the Farmers Insurance Open (GETTY)}

Despite finishing in a tie for last at Isleworth there were supposedly encouraging signs that week, signs that he had changed his motion to assist his withering frame. Alas, within two events, bleakness has descended again, with those such as Sir Nick Faldo warning about the necessities.

"Physically he has got to get this right again,” Faldo said. “He has got to go back to the drawing board on the swing. ... He has got to find a way to swing a golf club - especially the driver - where the spine is not putting so much tension and torque on it. That is his absolute must."

^{Out: Tiger Woods feels his back at Torrey Pines (GETTY)}

Faldo was not talking about the Masters in April. To be frank, it really does not matter if he is there or not, because in this shape he has absolutely no chance. Faldo was talking about the long-term, about the five or six seasons he may still have if he can somehow recover his fitness and form. Yet as hopes go, these appear on the pessimistic of forlorn as he tries to prepare for the Honda Classic in less than three weeks’ time. The query has to be, does Woods possess the inclination or the appetite to carry on?

Even if his continued back travails do not get to him, Woods has just been attacked by a plague of the yips and, as Tommy Armour, the legendary Scot who coined the dreaded “Y” term, put it, “One you’ve had em, you got them”. Believe it, the game is be colluding against its great champion, not only with the injuries and the aberrations, but with the standard of the young guard threatening to leave him standing as he grabs that spine in agony.

Never mind the brilliance of Rory McIlroy , there is Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, Fowler, Horschel and so many others promising to set the bar higher and higher. Even if Woods does return to his best - and, right now, that is an almighty par-five of an “if” - then how will that best now measure? Woods must be thinking that, must be feeling it all slipping away when he is forced hide behind such physio-truck psycho-babble as “activating my glutes”.

Others may giggle, reference Karma, but for sports lovers it is truly sad seeing a genius like this. And how painful and wretched it must appear from his viewpoint we can only wonder and ponder.