Tiger Woods details unexpected health setbacks, casts doubt on future starts

Tuesday morning World Heroes Challenge Week It’s become a strange rite of passage in professional golf, as Tuesday morning’s Hero World Challenge week has become a window into Tiger Woods’ future.

For years, Woods has made this week’s 20-player showcase a stomping ground for him various career resumeswhich has made his annual press conference on Tuesday morning a place for him in to learn a little something about what the actual vision looks like. How does Tiger feel? What is his hope for the future? Can he play five events next season, or five before the US Open?

Because he’s Tiger Woods, his answers have long been considered highly newsworthy information. And, because he’s Tiger Woods, his answers have changed almost every year.

On this Tuesday Morning Chal World Herolenge, the tone was modest. Woods walked into the interview room at Albany Golf Club as the tournament host, but non tournament competitoropting to step away from action as he recovers from at least his sixth back surgery in the last decade, a microdiscectomy is performed in early September.

The 15-time major champion looked like a professional golfer, with the same chiseled upper body that has helped rebalance his movement in the years since the car accident that robbed him of power in his lower body. But as he spoke to the assembled press, it became clear that he did not smelt like one.

“I’m still not sharp in the tournament, no. I’m not there yet,” he said. “These are 20 of the best players in the world and I’m not sharp enough to compete against them at this level. So when I’m ready to compete and play at this level, then I will.”

Woods’ words undermined the sentiment he shared last December, when he revealed his hope to play in one event a month in 2024, starting with the Genesis Invitational in February and ending, possibly, with the Tour Championship in September. Tiger accumulated just four starts in that time and recorded a 72-hole score just once, at the Masters.

On Tuesday he revealed that the source of the ’24 struggle was, in fact, his back, where a sudden bout of spasms had caused him pain down his spine and down his leg at various points throughout the season.

“I didn’t think my back was going to go like it did this year,” Woods said. “It was quite painful throughout the end of the year and so I had another procedure to relieve the pain in my leg.”

September’s microdiscectomy surgery to relieve pressure caused by a herniated disc in his spine should help Woods play closer to pain-free in the future. He underwent the same procedure in 2021, one of a half-dozen spinal operations he has faced since his famous spinal fusion in 2017.

In the Bahamas, however, it was clear that his hours under the knife were starting to add up – both physically and psychologically.

“The fire still burns to compete,” Woods said. “But as far as the recovery process to go out there … and do it consistently at a high level, I can’t. For some reason, the body just won’t heal like it used to. That’s part of age and part of an athlete’s journey.”

Between his leg and back, Woods has undergone a dozen surgeries in the past decade, and that’s to say nothing of the knee procedures after his famous US Open win in 2008. Countless hours of discomfort have filled the moments between those surgeries. – painful hours in rehabilitation, fights on the golf course and, of course, the development of new injuries.

“If my commitment is going to be once a month, yes, I can say it again, but I really don’t know,” he said. “I’m just trying to rehab and get stronger and better and feel better, really give myself the best chance I can go next year.”

On Tuesday at the Hero World Challenge, the latest look in Tiger Woods’ future was not rosy. His recent answers about his health and playing schedule were not overly optimistic. And yet, it was the same steady drumbeat underlying his question-and-answer session — the same sense of unresolved tension that keeps us coming back to this golf tournament and this podium every December. The glimmers of hope are fainter now, but you don’t have to look far to find them.

“This year was kind of — I had to throw it away,” Woods said. “I wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be and I didn’t play as much as I needed to go to the big championships 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.”