Can surgically-repaired Tiger Woods walk 72 holes? He sounds bullish

Throughout Tiger Woods’ many comebacks, and particularly those following his February 2021 automotive crash, the 15-time main winner has remained steadfast in his perception that he can win once more at golf’s highest ranges.

This week — at his personal Hero World Challenge — is not any exception.

“So,” he was requested by a reporter Tuesday within the Bahamas, “you being right here assumes you suppose you’ll be able to nonetheless win?

“Absolutely,” Woods replied forward of his star-studded 20-man exhibition the place, for the primary time in three years, he’ll be one of many stars taking part in.

With that form of certainty, it’s simple to neglect that the final time we noticed Woods in competitors, it was painful. Both for him and golf followers.

Woods hasn’t performed since withdrawing halfway via a soggy and delayed third spherical of the Masters. He made his fourth reduce there in 5 occasions since getting back from a devastating crash that just about value him his proper leg. But for the third time he failed to finish 72 holes.

The final scenes of him earlier than he withdrew that day weren’t fairly. One of the best athletes of his technology, if not of all time, might barely walk.

Nearly eight months and a minimum of one surgical procedure later, Woods says strolling 72 holes over 4 consecutive days — which he has completed solely twice because the 2020 Masters — isn’t a fear anymore.

“I’m not concerned at all about walking it,” Woods mentioned, echoing what he advised the Associated Press earlier this month. “It’s more, as I said, I don’t have any of the ankle pain that I had with the hardware that’s been placed in my foot, that’s all gone.”

Woods was requested 10 totally different questions regarding his well being throughout his press convention Tuesday, his first since present process a subtalar fusion surgical procedure on his proper ankle within the days following his Masters WD.

That surgical procedure, Woods mentioned, wanted to occur sooner or later, however his return to aggressive golf in 2022 and early 2023 pushed up the process sooner than anticipated.

“They weren’t expecting me to put as many forces into that ankle as when I hit drivers, and so I think the doctors were surprised by that,” Woods mentioned. “And the ankle just went, it was bone on bone and that’s why you saw me limping and not feeling very good. The only way to fix that was either to get it replaced or fused, and we chose the fusion, the subtalar fusion and put hardware in there.”

With Woods now claiming a best-case situation of taking part in one event a month transferring ahead, probably greater than doubling the variety of occasions he’s performed the final two years, protected to say he painted an optimistic image. He added he’s “on the good side” of his restoration.

Woods mentioned he solely grew to become positive he might play this week after he examined his ankle by caddying 54 holes for his son, Charlie, final month at a junior golf event in Florida.

“[I] was able to recover each and every day like that,” he mentioned. “I used to be nonetheless lifting and nonetheless doing a bunch of different issues too alongside of that, so along side that and through a part of it, all my seaside walks at residence, simply the buildup, how might I get better, might I maintain progressing on the identical time, proper? I used to be hitting golf balls quite a bit, making an attempt to get Charlie prepared for the occasion.

“And then post-event I started feeling, you know what, I can probably do, so why not?”

This week, although, will nonetheless be an enormous check for Woods. We’ve seen beforehand simply how fragile his well being will be. He dedicated to the Hero in related vogue final yr, ready till a number of weeks earlier than the occasion so as to add himself to the sphere, earlier than withdrawing on Monday of event week due to plantar fasciitis.

Woods even admitted that he hasn’t examined his scoring capability very a lot in his ramp-up to this week.

“I’ve played a lot of holes, but I haven’t, you know, I haven’t used a pencil and scorecard,” Woods mentioned. “Now, you put a pencil to paper and it really counts, it’s a little bit different story. So I’m very curious about that as well.”

Just like the remainder of the golf world.

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Editor

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State University, incomes levels in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his highschool golf group and not too long ago returned to this system to function head coach. Jack additionally nonetheless *tries* to stay aggressive in native amateurs. Before becoming a member of GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but additionally producing, anchoring and even presenting the climate. He will be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.