Might it be best if this was Tiger Woods' last Masters?

AUGUSTA, Ga. — That figure in Sunday red, the color of at least two of the best three moments in Masters history, surely could not be Tiger Woods.

He possessed the build of a Tiger, ripples of muscle spreading across broad shoulders and chest. That familiar athlete’s physique — not necessarily a golfer’s — V-ing at the waist. And when he took off his cap at the No. 12 tee to acknowledge the loud appreciation of those who love him regardless of, well, everything, he certainly looked like Woods, if only a bit more puffy and middle-aged and considerably more follically challenged.

But the acts of butchery this man had committed on the course this day, and over the entire Masters weekend, bore no resemblance to Woods and the legend he constructed here. In place of spellbinding shot-making there was only an unrelenting struggle. It was the kind of uncomfortable golf creaking old Masters champions used to play here when they were allowed in 20 years past their prime.

No, that wasn’t Tiger Woods. It couldn’t be.

So irrelevant was Woods on Sunday that he finished his round nearly an hour before the leaders teed off. So poorly had he played — his 82 Saturday was his worst round here in 100 trips and his 77 Sunday confirmed that he would finish 60th and last among those who made the Masters cut — that you had to wonder:

As he headed up the steep hill that leads to the 18th green, would this be the last time he’d ask his mangled leg to make the climb?

Or, rather:

Should this be the last time?

The greatest golfer of his generation, arguably behind only Jack Nicklaus as the greatest of all time, certainly owns the right to script his own competitive ending.

But now it is our right to ask ourselves, how much more of this do we have the stomach to watch?

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