I’M NOT READY TO THROW IN THE TOWEL
Tiger: I hurt every day but I think I can get one more Green Jacket
TIGER WOODS has claimed he can play through the pain barrier and make more history by winning a recordequalling sixth Masters title this weekend.
The American superstar, 48, has played only six full Tour events since a horrific car crash in February 2021.
And the 15-time Major winner, who has not completed 72 holes for nearly 15 months, admitted: “I hurt every day.”
Woods winning his fifth Masters here in 2019 after 11 years of scandal and surgeries was one of the greatest sports stories in history.
But the player now ranked world No.959 reckoned he can go one better in 2024. ”If everything comes together, I think I can get one more,” he said. “Do I need to say any more than that, or are we good?”
In his pomp, Woods always insisted he would never become a “ceremonial golfer” and he did not give a longer answer when asked if he had thought about joining fellow legends Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson as an honorary starter at Augusta. “I have not thought about being a starter here, no,” he said.
Even when the things in his game don’t come together? “Well, I still think they can,” Woods stated. “So I don’t know when that day is, when that day comes, but I still think that I can. I haven’t got to that point where I don’t think I can’t.”
Woods still talks a good game – and he was backed by his friend Freddie Couples after they played nine holes together yesterday.
“Can he win here?” asked the 1992 champion. “You know what, yeah. I just watched him play nine holes. Now nine holes is only nine holes on a Tuesday but he never mishits a shot. But the idea of making a cut, he would laugh at that because he’s here to win. He’s here to play really, really hard.”
At the age of
63 years and 187 days, Couples
(right) became the oldest player to ever make the cut here last year while Woods equalled the record of 23 consecutive Masters cuts.
Since then he has played 72 holes at his Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas (last December) and withdrew from the Genesis Invitational in February on the seventh hole of the second round with flulike symptoms. Now he faces the tough task of walking the hilly Augusta National with nagging pain in his battered body.
“I hurt every day,” he smiled. “I ache.”
Is it worse here? “No, I ache every day. And I prefer it warm and humid and hot. I know we’re going to get some thunderstorms so at least it will be hot. It won’t be like last year.”
There are storms forecast for tomorrow’s opening round – Woods will tee off at 1.24pm alongside Jason Day and Max Homa – but temperatures will still reach 24 degrees Celsius.
Woods had surgery on his back for the fifth time in December 2020 and had emergency surgery to save his lower right leg after the car crash.
“The ankle doesn’t hurt anymore,” he explained. “It’s fused. It’s not going anywhere. So that’s fine. It’s other parts of my body that now have to take the brunt of it. Once he put the rods in there, it’s good to go. But, the back, the knee, other parts of the body have to take the load of it. Things just flare up. Some days I just feel really good, other days not so much.”
Without his usual Nike baseball cap – he now has his own clothing line – Woods looked all of his 48 years in his pretournament press conference.
He stated in December his aim had been to play once a month this year but he has not tried to play since February. “I wasn’t ready to play,” he explained. “My body wasn’t ready. My game wasn’t ready. But now we have Major championships every month from here through July. So now the oncea-month hopefully kicks in.”
Woods revealed he is in negotiations to become the US Ryder Cup captain at Bethpage Black in New York next year. “We’re still talking about it,” he smiled.
Augusta specialist Woods is 125-1 to win the Masters and 3-1 to seal a top-20 slot. He’s just 11-10 to make a 24th consecutive halfway cut.