By John Feinstein
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 4:01 PM

There is no athlete on earth who inspires more comment -- regardless of what he is doing -- than Tiger Woods.

A week ago, everyone ran out of adjectives describing his performance in winning the U.S. Open on a damaged knee. Even without knowing how seriously he was injured -- that news wouldn't come until Wednesday -- people were awed by his ability to deal with pain for 91 holes and still come up with the shots he had to as he beat Rocco Mediate in Monday's playoff.

But the minute word began to get out last Wednesday that Woods was going to undergo surgery again, this time for a torn anterior cruciate ligament, questions began to arise about whether he should have played and what his post-surgery future might hold.

Woods is as secretive as anyone alive about just about anything in his life that goes beyond yardages and club selection, but if you have followed his career at all, the answers to the questions are really quite simple: He should have played, and he will come back and play as well as ever.

Let's start with his decision to play at Torrey Pines. Did he win? Did he walk away ¿ okay, limp away -- feeling more satisfied than he has perhaps ever felt before about winning a golf tournament? And, most important, did he do any damage to the knee or to the stress fractures in his leg that will affect him permanently?

The answer to the last question is no. How do I know this? I'm not a doctor, I did not stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night and, trust me, Woods has not been consulting with me at any point in the recent past. Here's how I know: Woods may be hard-headed, the way all great athletes are, but he is not an "idiot," as one columnist called him. In fact, he is probably the brightest athlete out there, someone who would never jeopardize his future for one golf tournament.

He knew before the U.S. Open that his knee was going to need surgery again. He knew that he wouldn't damage the ACL any further and, according to orthopedic surgeons, most of the pain he dealt with came from the two stress fractures in his legs.

There's little doubt that if Woods hadn't shot 30 on his second nine on Friday, he would have withdrawn. If he'd barely made the cut or been eight or nine strokes back of the leaders, he almost certainly would have shut it down. But he was one shot out of the lead and there was no one in contention who scared him -- of course, there never is.

So let's just stop with the silly notion that he somehow was risking his future by playing. He wasn't. Woods is as calculating as any athlete who has ever lived. His decisions are thought out and are always made with one thing in mind first: how does this affect the quest for 18 -- Jack Nicklaus's all-time record for professional major titles. If a doctor had said, "You can play the U.S. Open but you might never play again," Woods wouldn't have played. If a doctor had said, "You can skip the U.S. Open and avoid surgery and have a healthy knee in time for the British Open and the PGA," he wouldn't have played.

But that's not what the doctors told him. They told him he was going to need surgery regardless, and that playing the U.S. Open, while painful, wouldn't affect his long-term future.

So he played. And won. That's the end of that discussion.

As for the future, it's equally simple: ACL surgery is not a heart transplant. (which, by the way, at least one PGA Tour player has come back from). Is it likely Woods will have to adjust his swing to protect the knee? Yes. He's already changed his swing three different times since turning pro, and he has always gotten better once he made the adjustment. So, if need be, he'll do it again.

What's more, coming back from the surgery, Woods will feel he has something to prove to those who called him an idiot (trust me, he's read the column) and to anyone else who doubts on any level whether he can come back and dominate the way he has dominated in the past. No one -- not even Michael Jordan -- is better at turning slights, real or imagined, into inspiration than Woods. The next major he wins, one of his opening lines will be something along the lines of, "it's very satisfying to show the doubters they were wrong."

If you think that's hyperbole consider this: After he won the U.S. Open for the first time in 2000 at Pebble Beach (by 15 shots), he signed a photo of himself holding the trophy for his then-teacher Butch Harmon. The photo said the following: "Butch: Thanks for helping me win this one. I know a lot of people thought I'd never win it."

In truth, almost no one doubted Woods' ability to win the U.S. Open. Some people did note early in his career that his tendency to get wild with the driver might make it tougher for him to win the U.S. Open than the other majors. In Woods' mind, that became "they don't think I can win."

That's part of his greatness: finding ways to stay driven when he's proven just about everything he needs to prove at the age of 32. When he gets to 19 majors, he will want to prove "the doubters" who say he can't get to 25 wrong. There will always be something.

For now it's the knee. He will be better physically when he comes back and, if it's possible, better mentally.

There's one other side benefit to all this: Woods doesn't have to play the Ryder Cup in September. This will be good for Woods -- he's never liked the event and never played very well in it -- and, believe it or not, may be good for the American team.

For one thing, Captain Paul Azinger won't have to deal with the delicate question of who to pair Woods with -- although he could have played him with Jim Furyk four times, since Furyk seems able to deal with the pressure of partnering him better than any other American has dealt with it.

There won't be all the questions about whether Woods is happy or inspired or just going through the motions because he can't not represent his country. What's more, the European team won't get those shots of adrenaline it seems to get every time Woods loses a match. And the Americans won't have to hear all the pre-match talk about how they can't possibly lose with the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the world on the team. They can and they have -- three times in a row, to be specific. Maybe the Americans can even cast themselves as underdogs and bring Woods in to give a fire-and-brimstone pep talk on Saturday night.

The bottom line is this: for all the analysis that's gone on in the last week -- the New York Times, Washington Post and National Public Radio all turned to scientists to analyze Woods's injuries -- Woods will come back, he will be healthy and he will dominate golf again.

Oh, and one other thing: The rest of the players on Tour had better make some hay this summer. The sheriff is on vacation. But he will be back -- on two good legs. Given his performance on one good leg a couple weekends ago, that can't be encouraging for those who will have to compete with him. And they're going to be competing with him for a long time to come.