Tiger Woods is confident that his back will hold out this time
San Diego — Tiger Woods is more confident than ever that his return to the PGA Tour will be different this time.
It's not so much how he plays, but rather for how long.
"I have no more pain in my back," Woods said Wednesday.
That wasn't the case a year ago. Woods was coming off the longest break of his career following two back surgeries when he played the Hero World Challenge and showed promise by making 24 birdies against an 18-man field with no cut. But then he missed the 36-hole cut at Torrey Pines, and lasted one round in Dubai before withdrawing with back spasms.
Fusion surgery on his lower back followed two months later, and now Woods is on the same track as he was last year — with one exception.
"I was trying to manage the disk and the vertebrae," Woods said after his pro-am round in the Farmers Insurance Open. "But it's all finished now. It's fused, and the quality of life is infinitely better than it was last year at this point."
He looked just as strong, just as healthy, as he did in the Bahamas last month. Woods began and ended the pro-am with an approach to a few feet for easy birdies.
The real test begins today at a tournament he has won seven times, not including his U.S. Open title in 2008.
This will be only his second PGA Tour event since August 2015.
Woods is known for saying that he shows up at every tournament expecting to win, though time — not to mention four back surgeries in nearly four years — has tempered his expectations. He concedes he has competitive rust, at least compared with the players he will try to beat.
"I just want to start playing on the tour, and getting into a rhythm of playing a schedule again," Woods said. "I haven't done that in such a long time, so I don't know what to expect. Just go out there and just play. I'm going to grind."
Woods used to be able to look at a golf course and have a reasonable idea what kind of score it would take to win.
That's no longer the case, mainly because of the competition.
He has played only one tournament with Jon Rahm, the 23-year-old Spaniard who won last week in the California desert and can move to No. 1 in the world if he can defend his title at Torrey Pines. Woods met him for the first time this week.
"A lot of names I haven't seen, I haven't played with, I haven't seen their games," he said. "We'll see."
Woods begins on the South Course today with Charley Hoffman and Patrick Reed. The South is the stronger of the two courses, having hosted the U.S. Open, and it's where Woods has taken control the seven times he won the PGA Tour event here.
He was so predictably good that in late January 2008 — the year the U.S. Open was coming to Torrey Pines — caddie John Wood lingered behind the 18th green on the South course and watched as Woods finished off an opening-round 67.