Does Tiger Woods have any magic left?
The 15-time major champion underwent yet another surgery — and another setback — on Sept. 13, but until Woods utters the words 'I'm done,' winning is still on the table.
The big news of last week wasn’t:
> The United States reclaiming the Solheim Cup.
> Rory McIlroy losing the AmGen Irish Open down the stretch to Rasmus Hojgaard.
> Jon Rahm winning the LIV Golf season title and $18 million (or $7 million less than Scottie Scheffler’s FedEx Cup take).
> Steve Stricker’s first senior circuit win since his father passed away in January.
> Patton Kizzire’s comeback from left field to win another PGA Tour title.
No, the big news happened on Friday the 13th when Tiger Woods revealed that he underwent another microdiscectomy on his back. That was discouraging news, especially considering he had a full back fusion in 2017.
Some golf observers worried that surgery in ‘17 might be a career-ender. Then Woods won a Masters two years later in somewhat improbable fashion. Given his surgical history, that one ranks among the greatest Masters wins of all time.
So if there’s one thing to remember about Tiger, it’s this: Never say never.
His iconic golf skills have survived almost too many surgeries to count. The big question is, how many surgeries are too many for a professional golfer? Woods is on track to find out.
Woods’ play in 2024 seemed to indicate he may already have passed that point. Yes, he teed it up in all four major championships. He made the cut in only one — the Masters, where he shot 82-77 on the weekend and finished 60th, dead last. He doesn’t look like the Tiger of old, just an old Tiger. His damaged body doesn’t look as if it’s going cooperate with him for 72 holes over four days. One good round, maybe two, yes. Four? Doubtful.
His game was not sharp. He blamed that on not having enough reps, as he terms practice, or tournament prep. His back doesn’t allow him to practice as much as he’d like or compete in more than the occasional event.
Anyone else would already be written off. But he is Tiger Woods, so only the skeptics have done so and the evidence says they’re probably not wrong. Would you bet even $1 at 1,000-to-1 that Woods wins another major title? Or any PGA Tour event? Probably not.
Yet Tiger still moves the needle with viewers. He always has but now it’s for a different reason. Before, he was the player to beat and he pulled off at least one shot every tournament during his prime that you either couldn’t believe or had never seen anyone else do. Every tournament.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Tiger Woods had another surgery performed on Sept. 13, and is expected to be out between eight and 12 weeks. In 2024, Woods played all four majors for the first time since 2019, but made the cut only at the Masters. What should be the realistic competitive expectations for Woods, 48, going forward?
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Now, fans swarm after him because a Tiger sighting is a rare event. How many more chances will fans have to see a Mozart concert? Each one could be the last. Television viewers grumble, understandably so, when cameras cut to Woods even when he is far out of contention. Those cameras are there for the same reason. A lot of people still care about seeing Woods and given his physical limitations, there is no guarantee he’ll be able to play the senior circuit once he hits 50 or that he’d even want to. So there may not be many more opportunities.
Jack Nicklaus played well late into his career, seriously contending in a Masters when he was 58. He also had a second act winning majors in senior golf. Nicklaus had none of the injury problems Woods has endured. The 18 major championships and 22 more runner-up finishes were the linchpins of the Nicklaus Era, but his most underrated accomplishment was his longevity. He was capable of winning majors for nearly three decades. The only other great players in that neighborhood are Sam Snead, who won all seven on his majors in a mere five-year span but claimed Vardon Trophy titles over a span from 1938 to 1955, and Woods.
There have to be limits to everything, though, and we need to be realistic. One website, GolfMagic.com, issued a Friday the 13th story with the “breaking news” that if Woods were to win his 16th major championship, his Sun Day Red clothing line won’t simply add a 15th line to its bony-looking Tiger logo, it will create an entirely new logo.
Well, that doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s a thinly disguised clothing ad, really. Woods played only 12 competitive rounds this year and is far closer to being a ceremonial golfer (if he already isn’t) than he is to contending in another tournament.
Never again? I suggested last April that Woods had just played his last Masters, a story that one well-known golf website declined to publish. Nobody wants to admit it is a possibility.
Exhibit A is Woods’ scorecard from the last 10 years: Majors won 1, lower back surgeries 6.
RELATED: Tiger plays, we watch. Tiger speaks, we listen
No matter how minor this latest microdecompression surgery procedure was, Woods will turn 49 in three months and every operation takes a toll. That’s not even factoring in his five knee surgeries and the 2021 car crash in which he shattered bones in his right leg and ankle that led to another fusion procedure.
Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins had back and elbow problems that sent him off the senior circuit and into television broadcasting. He knows firsthand about back issues. After Woods’ fusion, he told me that was a solution that would simply shift the torque and the pressure from one vertebrae to the next one up, making it susceptible to an inevitable break. Wadkins believed Woods’ continued attempt to compete in professional golf came with some risk. Wadkins is not a doctor and he didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn the night before (as far as I know) but his description made sense.
Simply walking a course was an admitted problem for Woods before the ankle fusion. Now, it’s the turning and twisting of the body in the swing that bothers him, especially when he plays multiple days in a row. That sounds like an insurmountable problem for a player who used to own Sundays in major championships. Now it’s the most difficult day of the tournament for him, assuming he even makes it to Sunday.
Will this latest procedure improve that prognosis? How much? For how long? Woods will find out.
Woods’ recovery from his litany of injuries makes him a walking medical marvel as a normal man on the street. As a professional athlete, and as golf’s greatest player in the modern era, he is in a category all his own.
Is Woods done winning? Has he won his last major? Has he played his last Masters?
The answers, in order, are: Probably, probably, maybe.
He has plenty of reasons to keep trying. He loves playing in the father-son tournament, the PNC Championship, with his son, Charlie. He’s the founder and major force behind TGL, a simulator golf league featuring top PGA Tour players that was supposed to launch this year but was delayed when a storm took down the structure in Florida housing the host venue.
Expectations for Woods, pending his recovery from the latest operation, should be low. It is questionable if he will be able to play in the Hero World Challenge, the event he hosts in the Bahamas in December, and the PNC Championship. If he does tee it up, we’ll get a glimpse at his potential as a continuing competitor. Just a glimpse, not a final bottom line. Right now, we don’t have enough information about his condition to make a judgment.
No one knows his golfing future. Probably not even Woods. However, he is Tiger Woods, he deserves the respect his 82 victories earned even though it feels like a stretch to be optimistic.
Still, the last 15 years say it isn’t over until Tiger says it is.
So never say never … for now.
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hahaha! didn't tell em but i thought it. also, fewer outlets are willing to pay anything for content. and fewer writers are on an actual payroll. media and writing pretty much doomed. it's all gonna be fans sitting and home spewing opinions from their couch. no original reporting. kinda like newspapers now. geezus, how'd we let tht happen?
Many people still care. Just not you, thats ok.