Tiger woods completed 18th this week at the Hero World Challenge.
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Tiger Woods famously by no means indicators up for a event if he doesn’t really feel he can win it.
But whether or not he needs to confess it or not — and he may as properly have Sunday — an 18th-place end this week at the Hero World Challenge was a win for Tiger Woods.
Woods accomplished the Hero this week, the 20-man exhibition he hosts within the Bahamas, with an even-par 72 Sunday to carry at degree par. However, the extra necessary half is that he accomplished all 72 holes, one thing he has finished simply 3 times now within the final three years.
This time, it was the primary time he had even competed in seven months after he withdrew through the third spherical of the Masters and subsequently had ankle surgical procedure days later.
“I’m curious just like you guys what this is going to look like,” Woods stated of his optimism after Sunday’s last spherical. “I haven’t done it [competed] in a while, I haven’t done it with my ankle the way it is now and I was excited each and every day to kind of get through it and kind of start piecing rounds together again.”
In Woods’ 5 earlier begins (not together with his two begins at the PNC Championship along with his son Charlie the place he used a cart) since coming back from his February 2021 automotive crash, there have been at all times moments of laboring. His limp would grow to be extra pronounced. He would grimace after swings and awkward steps. He would use his golf golf equipment as canes.
That wasn’t the case this week.
Woods, who might need probably the most extremely scrutinized gait of any individual on this planet proper now, nonetheless had a limp all through the week at Albany, however the pacing of his stroll by no means modified. There was one second when NBC cameras caught Woods showing to be in some ache strolling out of a bunker on the again 9 Sunday, however that was it.
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He reminded reporters every day that simply because his surgically-fused ankle doesn’t damage anymore, doesn’t imply different components of his soon-to-be-48-year-old physique don’t. He has to take care of that earlier than and after every spherical.
“It takes a long time,” Woods stated. “That’s the unfortunate thing about aging and trying to do something that either I’ve worn out my body or trying to keep up with the younger people, it takes a long time pre and post. You spend more time in the treatment room and weight room than you do on a golf course. That’s just part of wanting to hang around as an athlete.”
But protecting his physique upright is one factor. Playing golf at an elite degree is one other, and Woods stunned many this week.
While his 18th-place end doesn’t leap off the web page, finishing within the prime half of the elite subject in driving does. Woods now not generates energy by pushing of his proper foot like he used to, however he was nonetheless recording ball speeds within the higher 170s, sufficient to maintain tempo with the world’s finest.
His trademark surgical iron play and deft quick recreation and placing contact weren’t there. He even admitted his psychological recreation was rusty, however quite a lot of issues took time to come back again to him, the 15-time main winner stated, particularly throughout his first-round 75.
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“Every day I got faster into the round,” Woods stated. “The first day took me a while to get a handle on it, second day was faster, today was right away. And that’s eventually— when I play on a regular basis, that’s normally how it is… To be honest, that first day took me a while.”
He reaffirmed his perception from earlier within the week that he may play one occasion a month subsequent 12 months. This week was a very good litmus take a look at for him, regardless of the docile stroll Albany posed.
“I think that I can get into the rhythm of it,” Woods stated. “I believe that having a few weeks off to get well, every week to construct up, there’s no cause why I can’t get into that rhythm. It’s only a matter of getting in higher form mainly. I really feel like my recreation’s not that far off, however I have to get in higher form.
“I’ve got some work to do and excited to get back to work.”
He’ll get again to work in two weeks when he competes with Charlie once more at the PNC Championship. He’ll have the choice to make use of a cart that weekend, however watching how his recreation has recovered shall be a key indicator of how a lot he can actually play in 2024.
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