"If Woods isn't quite the same at Torrey Pines, it will show."

Jaime Diaz chimes in on Tiger's knee situation with some interesting thoughts.

There's no indication Woods' injury is in the same gift-robbing category of knee victims such as Mickey Mantle, Bobby Orr, Gale Sayers or Elgin Baylor. Still, it could alter his ability to play in a dominating style. For all his mental abilities, it was Woods' clear physical superiority that stood out when he won the 1997 Masters. And while it has been presumed that a decade later that gap had been narrowed as players such as Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes drive it past him, it turns out Woods still plays with the highest clubhead speed -- 124 miles per hour -- of any player on the PGA Tour. If he didn't choose to play a high-spinning ball and launch his drives on a relatively low trajectory, he would probably still be the game's longest hitter.

But if the after effects of his repaired knee were to cause Woods to lose, say, five mph in clubhead speed, it would blunt some of his edge. It would be subtle, but perhaps he would no longer be able call up enough power to reach the longest par 5, or muscle up from the rough, or hit a sky-high long iron to a pin that no one else can get near, or drive a par 4. Power -- correctly applied -- is a major "separator" when the challenge is extreme length, extreme rough and extreme firmness, as it will be at next week's U.S. Open. If Woods isn't quite the same at Torrey Pines, it will show.

The supreme champions, however, tend to rise to physical challenges. Vardon won two British Opens after a long bout with tuberculosis. Hogan lost much of his amazing athleticism after his car accident but found a way to win six majors in the three years after his return. Even Jack Nicklaus, the most untouched by fate among the greats prior to Woods, had a troublesome hip problem as early as 1963 and sacrificed some of his power after losing weight in 1970. The best years of his career were the succeeding five.

"Whatever I lost, I made accommodations for," Nicklaus said at the Memorial. "If Tiger has to, I'm sure he will make accommodations. My guess is he won't have to."