FORMER WORLD NO. 1 RETURNS TO COMPETITIVE GOLF AT HERO WORLD CHALLENGE
ON THE PROWL year, making it just one of two PGA events in which he competed in the 2017 season, along with January’s Farmers Insurance Open.
The Bahamas-based tournament, which Woods has won five times, features an elite field of 18 golfers. Sixteen of this year’s entrants are ranked in the top 24, including Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Jason Day and Rickie Fowler, with Woods, whose world ranking has plunged to 1180, and 27th-ranked Daniel Berger rounding out the field. “I’d like to thank the committee of one for picking myself and Daniel Berger to play” this year, Woods joked on Twitter. He has used social media this month to share video of his progress, from hitting iron shots to finally being able to swing a driver again.
Woods last won a PGA tournament in 2013, when he notched up five victories and finished second in the FedEx Cup standings. Over the 2014 and 2015 seasons, he played in just 18 events, with no wins and seven missed cuts. His last major triumph was at the 2008 US Open. At September’s Presidents Cup, where Woods served as a captain’s assistant, he told reporters, “I don’t know what my future holds for me.” Woods noted that, at the time, he was limited to “hitting 60-yard shots”.
“There were times when… I didn’t know if I was going to be able to be here because I couldn’t ride in a cart,” Woods said then. “The bouncing just hurt too much. Driving a car still hurt. So that’s all gone now, which is fantastic. And yeah, there were some intrepid times — not just for this golf tournament, but for life going forward.”
Woods’s agent, Mark Steinberg, said two weeks ago that his client had been given clearance to resume all golfing activities by the doctor who performed his back surgery. “He can do as much as he needs to do,” Steinberg said. “Tiger is going to take this very, very slowly. This is good, but he plans to do it the right way.”
- Washington Post