HOW TIGER CAME BACK FROM DEAD
New spine surgery technique ended his crippling pain
GOLF icon Tiger Woods is at the top of his game again after miracle back surgery saved him from screaming pain.
The 42-year-old, once considered unbeatable, copped the Tour Championship at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club late last month for his first PGA victory since 2013.
Even though he struggled at the Ryder Cup international matches a couple weeks ago, Tiger’s astounding comeback followed risky spinal surgery by Dr. Richard Guyer at the Texas Back Institute in April last year. Two of his vertebrae were fused and damaged disc material was removed, says a source.
“It was instant nerve relief. I haven’t felt this good in years,” Tiger wrote in his blog.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin, who has not treated the superstar swinger, says, “His pain was caused by the bones squeezing a nerve between them.”
Mirkin says the “surgeon made a cut through his belly, not his back” and “removed the soft spongy disc and replaced it with either metal or bone pieces to fuse the upper vertebral bone to the lower bone.” The result is “there was no disc to be squashed and the nerve no longer has an upper or lower bone pressing on it.”
The operation saved Woods’ career, says a source, since “after three surgeries he had nearly given up and was close to throwing in the towel — until he heard about this doctor.” With the pain gone, “Tiger doesn’t need drugs to numb the searing pain or Ambien to sleep,” adds the source.
While he had real physical damage, Tiger’s career went into a tailspin in November 2009, when he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a hydrant, trying to escape his furious, golf club-wielding wife, Elin Nordegren, who’d learned he’d been cheating.
Following that incident, dozens of gals claimed having had sex with him, and Elin, mom of his two young kids, divorced him. Years later, he was busted for driving under the influence of drugs, which he claimed he took to ease his agony.
Now, he’s “at the gym every day with a trainer doing cardio, weight lifting and corestrengthening exercises,” notes the source. “Tiger’s never been better!”