Gritty or Greedy?

So Tiger Woods played in the 108th U.S. Open Championship despite his doctors orders to do so (he had surgery on his left knee about 2 months ago)....and won. When asked in his post-round interview why he disregarded his doctors orders to play he responded (I'm paraphrasing here) "That's what I do. I play."

From my point of view, there are two ways to look at this story. They are:

1. Tiger should be respected and congratulated for playing despite his injury. It takes a lot of will-power and moxy to play golf at that caliber in spite of pain. -OR-
2. Tiger is a prideful glory hound that let his quest for domination of the sport of golf get the best of him. He selfishly threw away the rest of his season just to win another major title (he now has 14 by the way).

I think, to some degree, Americans glorify a wounded athlete too much. Now it's one thing for an athlete to get hurt in the midst of competing, and gutting it out to win. It's a whole other thing to compete while injured (against medical advice) thus jeopardizing your future career as an athlete.

What do you think?