1 line from Tiger Woods’ presser alludes to golf’s painful year

There was plenty of good vibes to come out of Tiger Woods’ Tuesday re-appearance in the Bahamas, his annual State of the Tiger press conference ahead of this week’s conference. World Challenge of Heroes. Woods isn’t playing this year, but he seemed at ease with that, instead resuming his role as the host of the Smile Tour. These days, Woods is mostly comfortable with the press and vice versa, each due to a better understanding of what to expect from the other. As expected, the day’s progress failed to reveal any five-alarm news. In some ways that was the biggest takeaway. But one line was hard to hear without cringing.

Woods was asked about a prediction he had made a year earlier in the same chair, when he had stated his intentions to play once a month in 2024. It seemed ambitious but exciting at the time, a dose of optimism from the greatest player of his generation. But it didn’t turn out that way. Woods’ 2024 started with one Mysterious WD at the Genesis Invitational, he topped it with another made a cut at the Masters and then came disappointing MCs at the PGA, US Open and Open Championship. We didn’t hear much from him after that, just news of another successful back surgery – his sixth. So what happened?

“Well, I didn’t think my back was going to go like this year,” Woods said.

He described the pain that progressed throughout the season, how it radiated down his leg and how it did not respond to treatment and recovery. He said that he can committed again to one tour a month, but he stopped.

“I really don’t know.”

Now comes the hard part. Prep mode for 2025, a year that promises TGL and an unknown number of stroke golf tournaments. But 2024?

“This year was kind of — I had to throw it away,” he said. “I wasn’t as sharp as I should have been. I didn’t play enough to get to the majors and I didn’t play well in them. I hope next year will be better, I will be physically stronger and better. I know the procedure helped and hopefully I can build on that.”

I had to throw it away. It is painful to witness pain in another human being. It’s even harder to see what pain does to an athlete—how the body can betray the mind and spirit. It’s painful to watch especially Woods, who has pushed his body, his mind AND the spirit has crossed the line for decades and is now battling father time for good measure.

Woods’ words were also poignant in the context of his other work as a central figure in the PGA Tour’s geopolitical negotiations — his lost year on the course felt emblematic of a lost year in the fragmented landscape of professional golf. which remains in frustrating oblivion.

This December marks the first anniversary of the initial term of the agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund. It looks like we’ll pass that unfortunate one-year mark without a deal; Woods’ latest update on that front was a mix between some cautious optimism (“definitely moving”) and a giant shrug (“Even if we had reached a deal by now, it’s still in the hands of the DOJ, but we wish we had something more concrete”).

In all of sports, it was hardly a wasted year – think Scottie Scheffler’s extent of dominanceXander Schauffele’s ConfirmationBryson DeChambeau’s US Open heroic. But WITHIN sport, the “high-level negotiations” between the interested parties are beginning to feel like a mismatch. We’ve seen no progress towards a satisfactory resolution of the high tournament, no closer to peace or harmony, and we’re back in December, seeing an incredible season of LIV signing rumors and eye melts that aren’t updated.

In this week’s Hero, we may not find solace. But through Woods, we can at least find context. This year marks the 25th edition of the World Challenge, an event Woods first organized in 1999 to benefit his foundation. Woods turns 49 at the end of this month, meaning he’s hosted the event for more than half his life.

Mostly this seems surreal. Tiger turned 24 in his first year hosting the tournament and it’s hard to imagine Ludvig Aberg (who turned 25 last month) or Akshay Bhatia (who turns 23 next month) waiting for an invitation or get the best professionals in the world to present. But the event’s 25th anniversary is also a reminder that the problems facing pro golf in 2024 haven’t changed much since 1999.

Woods was already the greatest golfer then. He entered the 1999 World Challenge on the back of four consecutive PGA Tour victories, he would start 2000 with two more and, later that year, he would claim his first three Tiger Slams. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses; Woods and agent Mark Steinberg had their own problems with PGA Tour operations. They did not appreciate the huge rights fee the Tour charged their tour, which quadrupled from 1999 to 2000. Nor did they approve of the advertisements used by tour sponsors that featured Woods’ likeness. (Mercedes plastered Woods’ face in tournament ads while Buick paid Woods directly for the same privilege.) Tiger and commissioner Tim Finchem had a frosty relationship, and there was even some concern that Woods might seek to play his golf elsewhere.

“The players and the PGA Tour have put their minds to a lot of issues,” Woods said in 2000. “The public has no idea we do it, but we do it all the time.” Asked about speculation that he might leave the PGA Tour, New York Times described his reaction this way: “Woods hummed, smiled and shrugged.”

His father Earl fueled the speculation.

“He can take his game to Europe, Africa, Asia or wherever he wants,” Earl told him Associated Press, “and the world will follow.”

Unlike today, when the palpable threat of layoff can broadcast its ads on the PGA Tour website, the conversation then it was likely just chatter and leverage. Woods and the PGA Tour were better in mutual company. But Woods’ displeasure was a reminder of the perpetual push and pull between players and institutions — a push-pull echoed by the arrival of LIV, by Policy Board negotiations, by changing course sizes and tournament sizes and capital and media rights. And from the discourse around players being paid to play in the Ryder Cup, an issue that resurfaced again at Tiger’s presser on Tuesday.

“Going back to my playing days, we had the same conversation in ’99 and we didn’t want to get paid, we wanted to give more money to charity, and the media turned it against us and said we want to get paid,” he recalled Woods on Tuesday. “The Ryder Cup itself makes so much money, why can’t we give it to different charities? And what’s wrong with every player, 12 players getting a million dollars and skill.” to share in the amazing charities they are involved in and can help?

A final reference to 1999 came in regards to Woods’ swing changes at the time, and here he made an attempt to set the record straight. Over time, Earl was painted as Woods’ swing coach, but after his early golf days, that was never really the case.

“My dad turned the whole golf swing wrench, that wasn’t his thing,” Woods said. “My dad understood more of the mental side of it from his operational days in the Special Forces and the mindset it took to do what he had to do, but as far as golf mechanics, no.”

In 1999, Woods underwent a controversial swing change under the watchful eye of Butch Harmon. At first things got worse and then they got much, much better.

“We went to work on slowly integrating the parts of the golf swing and it took the better part of a year and a half or so to where I thought it was where I wanted it to be. I had a good run in ’99, 2000, 2001,” Woods said in an understated, pleased manner.

Players fought the tournament then, as now. They fought for more money, more control, a bigger piece of the pie. They threatened to look elsewhere. By and large they stayed. They battled hard pitches and their swings, and they changed both and tried to make them better. At the time, Woods did all of these things better than almost all of his peers. Almost all of them have gotten tougher over time.

On Tuesday, however, Woods didn’t just turn around. This is the 10th anniversary of Hero’s sponsorship of the World Challenge, and as Hero’s CEO, Dr. Pawan Munjal acknowledged the uncertainty – “There is confusion even for sponsors now, what to do, where to go, how to look to the future,” – he also announced an extension of the sponsorship until 2030. Woods will turn 55 that December .It’s hard to predict the status of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour, or their potential crossover. And it’s hard to know if Woods will be out of competitive golf by that point — or if he’ll do it as a guest sponsor that week after making the cut at the Masters and dominating a limited schedule at the PGA Champions Tour.

Woods spoke about the athlete’s journey and the roles of recovery, patience and disappointment. His body doesn’t recover like it used to, he said. However, he remembers and hopes. Which brings us to his next line, uttered by athletes and sports fans for as long as there have been seasons.

Hopefully next year will be better.

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