Why the Hero of Time never defeated child timeline Ganondorf?

[silent lion]

while it's suspect that there aren't any gerudo in TP, I wouldn't necessarily take that to mean they all died off, mostly since FSA is chronologically next and does feature gerudo

... Ahhh. Well, ok then.

I've always thought that Link turned into a stalfos in the lost woods. Sms made a good point about the hero's shade being an adult as well as a fully trained knight, but consider this...
It appears as though Link is going through the lost woods (looking for Navi) before he falls through the portal to Termina. This portla is similar to others we see in the lost woods, such as the passageways leading to Death Mountain and Zora's Domain. At the end of the game Link goes back to the same woods as before and continues on his journey. So if there were one portal leading to an alternate world, why opulent the be more? If Link were going through the woods, hopping into different areas in search of his home, it would explain a few things. He could learn different sword skills from different lands, earning his armor that isn't similar to anything from Hyrule. The main problem there is the hero's shade in tp, and how tp Link is supposed to be his ancestor.
This leads me to the theory I just thought of one minute ago. Perhaps he did find his way home after mm. After all, the happy mask Salesman seemed to know the way (seeing as he was presented as a wanderer and Skull Kid stole majora's mask from him in the woods outside of the termina tunnel). So Link came home, had a family, became a knight, whatever. But he still couldn't forget about Navi, and went looking for her in the Lost Woods, as an adult. And the time he didn't come back. The hero's shade expresses in tp

As far as we know there were no wars in Hyrule directly following oot, not that anyone would have been strong enough to defeat him anyway. It would make more sense for him to die as a hero trying to do something for a friend, and ending up as a poe or stalfos as a cost.
Sorry for the mini rant, this just occurred to me and I'm curios to know if anyone else has considered this (or if there's any better evidence than me pulling one quote)

This was vaguely my interpretation as well, that he didn't die in MM in the fall or anything like that, just that he at some point gets lost in the Lost Woods. In fact, it's not even strictly necessary that he has kids, because the Hero works on a reincarnation thing and, unlike the Royal Family, I don't remember a direct line of ancestry connecting all the heroes being mentioned. Then again, it's also possible that he gets with someone within the Lost Woods, as most Links start in the forest anyway. Point being, no proof he needed to leave the woods.

 

[DJ Twitch]

This was vaguely my interpretation as well, that he didn't die in MM in the fall or anything like that, just that he at some point gets lost in the Lost Woods. In fact, it's not even strictly necessary that he has kids, because the Hero works on a reincarnation thing and, unlike the Royal Family, I don't remember a direct line of ancestry connecting all the heroes being mentioned. Then again, it's also possible that he gets with someone within the Lost Woods, as most Links start in the forest anyway. Point being, no proof he needed to leave the woods.

Hyrule Historia (and Encyclopedia iirc) confirm that TP Link is OoT Link's descendant. The game itself also says this when when he mentions "our bloodline"