Lincicome: Goodbyes are more about the fans than the guest of honor

The Bank of Scotland put Jack Nicklaus' face on its five-pound note when he played his last British Open at St. Andrews 17 years ago. That five pounds today would be worth five pounds.

A similar gesture would likely have been made for Tiger Woods if only anyone could be sure that he was really done this time, his scorecard offering all the evidence needed.

Woods won that Open when Nicklaus paused on the Swilcan Bridge and inhaled, one last breath. Woods did not stop but took off his cap and marched on, over the little stone photo op, leading with his one good leg, but he said he felt love.

I was there for Nicklaus and was touched by the moment, the passing of legends and all that. I remember writing that Woods was too good for St. Andrews, too good for any golf course, really, and tomorrow stretched out of reach.

So, too, I was at Augusta when Arnold Palmer made his last walk up 18, shooting his second consecutive 84, yet cheered for what he once was and not what he now was.

"I'm through," Palmer said. "I've had it. I'm done. It's over. I'm finished. I'm washed up."

That is as honest a summation as any ever for yesterday, at least without music. "Glory days, they'll pass you by. Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye."

Everyone stays too long - Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali, all of the greats - and now, too, has Woods, just another Willie Mays stumbling around the bases, though Woods does have the honest excuse of being held together by screws and glue.

Does leaving require more than a wave of the hand? Babe Ruth hit three home runs, got on a boat and let the world sweep up behind him. A couple of days later someone asked, "Where's Babe?"

Muhammad Ali quit in the breezeway of a shabby Bahamas hotel. The morning after his loss to Trevor Berbick in Nassau, Ali called together the press that had trotted after him, as we always did, and said so long and thanks for being there.

"But I took you to see the world, didn't I?" I remember Ali asking.

Endings fade. There are few Ted Williams moments, hitting a home run in his last at bat. We forget that Walter Payton was a yard short of a first down on his last carry. And that Ernie Banks, who always wanted to play two, sat out the last three games of his final season. We will remember the Woods that was, all the good, all the bad, each self-inflicted.

Like a funeral, Woods' farewells are more for the mourners rather than the guest of honor.

What we want is not just one more chance to show appreciation or affection. What we really want is an authentication of our devotion. All the time and attention we spend on an athlete seems less squandered if, at the end, we get to stand and cheer one last time, not only him but each other. The bigger the fuss, the better we feel.

Michael Jordan's first retirement was not official until it became a cable TV production with Sinbad telling witless jokes, Woody Harrelson singing badly and Larry King unveiling Jordan's statue.

Less than a year later, of course, Jordan returned by fax. "I'm Back," it said, still the most presumptuous short sentence never uttered by Charles de Gaulle.

But you have to wish Woods had not done it, had not gone back to the place he once made obsolete. No more than the last return of Jordan, who had a Ted Williams ending, as Woods did winning his fifth Masters. To see a lesser Jordan was to wince, as it is with Woods clanking a five-footer for double bogey.

The motives are always the same. To get back the glory. Not to now become just another, as the poet said, one of the lads who wore their honors out.

Sports endings are only passages, not a passing on, as Gretzky said, but a moving on. This does not include the occasional finish to bullfights, auto racing and tightrope walking, of course.