His marriage over, Woods now tries to repair a broken golf game

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Divorce official, Woods gets back to golf

PARAMUS, N.J. — The woman who doesn’t think much of Tiger Woods as a husband has little doubt about his future as a golfer.

“I know he is going to go down as the best golfer who ever lived, and rightfully so,” Elin Nordegren, his ex-wife, says in an interview with People magazine. “I feel privileged to have witnessed a part of his golfing career.”

He’s not looking so great at the moment.

Still the No. 1 player in the world ranking — barely — Woods has not won in any of his nine tournaments this year, the longest he has ever gone without a victory. For more telling evidence of his game, look no further than the FedEx Cup standings.

Woods was the No. 1 seed the past three years. He starts the PGA Tour playoffs this time at No. 112, needing to have a decent tournament at The Barclays just to advance to the second round next week.

And perhaps the most telling of all? Because of his low seeding, he will be the first to tee off Thursday at Ridgewood Country Club.

Has that ever happened before?

“First off on Saturday and Sunday, yes,” Woods said, a joke that barely registered with the media. “But not the first two days.”

At some point, the focus will return almost exclusively to his golf.

Just not quite yet.

Nine months after he was caught in a web of infidelity, Woods and Nordegren divorced on Monday. It was announced through a press release from their lawyers, after a hearing that lasted no more than 10 minutes.

Ready to start a new chapter on Wednesday at Ridgewood, he was confronted with yet another story. Nordegren, in what she said will be her only interview, spent 19 hours over four visits with People magazine to give her side of this tale. It was short on details — exactly what happened that night after Thanksgiving that caused Woods to drive off in wee morning hours and crash into a tree, and how much he paid in the divorce settlement — and chock-full of heartfelt emotion.

“I’ve been through hell,” Nordegren said in the interview, which the magazine released about the time Woods teed off in his pro-am. “It’s hard to think you have this life, and then all of a sudden — was it a lie? You’re struggling because it wasn’t real. But I survived. It was hard, but it didn’t kill me.”

Woods spoke to the magazine, so this was no surprise.

The surprise came on the first hole of his pro-am, after he hit his approach to the green. Andrea Peyser, a New York Post columnist, walked out into the fairway with notepad and pen to ask him questions. She had never been to a golf tournament and was not aware that reporters were to stay by the ropes.

Later, he was asked about his ex-wife’s comments in the magazine interview.

“I wish her the best in everything,” Woods said. “You know, it’s a sad time in our lives. And we’re looking forward in our lives and how we can help our kids the best way we possibly can. And that’s the most important thing.”

The focus now shifts to his golf, and Woods indicated as much by saying, “This is my job. This is what I do.”

Gone are the days when practice and even some tournament rounds ended with a phone call from lawyers, or a divorce document that had to be approved. Among the more telling details from divorce papers made public were that he signed the marital settlement agreement on the weekend of the AT&T National outside Philadelphia.

Woods handled questions about his golf swing and his divorce in equal fashion, but on one question he was succinct. He was asked to describe how the divorce process had affected his preparations for golf.

“It was a lot more difficult than I was letting on,” said.

Hard work remains. In the first year of the FedEx Cup playoffs, Woods didn’t even bother playing in The Barclays. That was in 2007, when he was playing so well that he could spot the field one tournament and still win the $10 million prize, and he did just that.

He also missed in 2008, this time with knee surgery, when the tournament was played at Ridgewood. It’s a Tillinghast course, traditional and tree-lined, and Woods had never seen it until his pro-am round Wednesday.

He seemed to hit the ball well enough and was pleased with the shape of some of his shots. The trouble for him all year, however, has been taking the same game from practice to a real round. That’s what awaits on Thursday.