The Masters

Tiger Woods chips onto the 2nd green during a practice round on Tuesday at the Masters.

 REUTERS

AUGUSTA, Georgia — Some of it never changes. The platinum grin. The athletic tape wrapped below the second knuckle of the right long finger. The devotion to Augusta National.

The Tiger Woods who met with the press Tuesday was still all those things and yet somehow less. The surgeries, the wrenching recoveries, the emotional damage of relationships gone bad, his age — 47, his hairline retreating before our very eyes— have delivered an ever-diminishing Woods to this Masters. Such is life.