Rather like a round of golf with this correspondent, Tiger Woods’s rehabilitation from the back surgery he had a month ago is going to be “tedious and long”.

The ailing former world No 1 made his last competitive outing at the Wyndham Championship at the end of August before making a surprise announcement a few weeks later that he had undergone surgery on his back for a second time.

Woods, who spent much of the early part of the 2015 season hirpling and hobbling about and withdrawing from tournaments, had his first surgery just before the Masters in 2014 and was out of action for three months. He did return but confessed that his comeback was too early. It now doesn’t look like we will be seeing Woods any time soon.

"Rehab will be soon, and it will be tedious and long," said Woods, who is recovering from the surgery to cure a fragmented disc that was pinching a nerve. "The last one, it took me a while to get back. Some players on tour have done the same procedure and to be back pain-free it took them over a year."

Woods, who has slithered to No 334 on the world rankings, will celebrate his 40th birthday this December but the 14-time major winner is still clinging to the hope that he can still have some roaring 40s. Despite his aches, pains and slide down the global order, Woods continues to talk in upbeat tones. We’ve heard it all before, of course. “It's important for me to have more than 18 majors when all is said and done," he said. "It took Jack (Nicklaus) his whole career to achieve it and mine is not done yet. I believe that I have a very good record for 20 years on the tour. The main thing is to get fit and to reach my 40s with good health to be as successful as Vijay (Singh), who won most of his tournaments at that age.”