Was that really Tiger?

The greatest golfer of this century didn't win the Masters last month, but who really expected him to? I've taken five months off from golf before, and my game looked like crap the first time back. And yet Tiger put the clubs in the closet (I hope he took them away from Elin first), went to rehab for whatever private personal issues he couldn't talk about, then came out to Augusta, no pitch-and-putt and certain to expose any weaknesses in a person's game, and actually made a run for the Green Jacket.

That he didn't win wasn't surprising. That he didn't embarrass himself (aside from a verbal outburst or two) was surprising.

Then came Tiger's second tournament, and embarrassing doesn't begin to describe it. Paired for two days with Angel Cabrera, who has both a Green Jacket and a U.S. Open title to his credit, and Stewart Cink, last year's British Open champion, Tiger looked like a pro-am partner from Bushwood Country Club, all over the lot and, worse yet, seemingly not even caring.

In two rounds at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., Tiger posted 10 bogeys and three double-bogeys, needing to par the final three holes on Friday just to break 80, and missed the cut - by eight shots. Somehow, he managed seven birdies in two days, but it wasn't enough to keep him from recording a fat 43 on his final nine holes and 153 for two days, the worst 36-hole score of his illustrious career.

The numbers, though, don't do this mess justice. You had to see Tiger in action, playing "army" golf - left, right, left, right - and rarely finding the fairway. He showed little of that magician's touch we've come to expect, and, though he promised prior to the Masters that he would work harder to keep his anger in check, to see him follow through with almost no emotion at all was sad, to say the least. We've heard him utter F-bombs, not very attractive; now we've seen him become emotionally detached, which might be even more scary.

If Tiger's play at Quail Hollow was pathetic, his reaction could only be described as apathetic.

You wouldn't think it could get worse, but it might. Tiger found the water on several occasions at Quail Hollow. But the course that awaits him next week - TPC at Sawgrass, site of the Players Championship - has water on nearly every hole, including the final three in what is the make-or-break stage of the "fifth major" for touring pros.

Roughly 400 years ago, the English clergyman and poet John Donne observed that "no man is an island." It may be too early to tell if Tiger is becoming (or trying to become) an island unto himself, but when he stands on the tee at Sawgrass' infamous 17th hole, observing a green almost completely surrounded by water, what will he see?

At that moment, will he feel like an island?