Woods comes up short as he pushes himself too hard
INJURIES, OFFICIAL WORLD GOLF RANKINGS — TIGER HAS HIS SAY
Tiger Woods reckons he pushed himself so hard to get back into competitive shape that he has simply pushed himself out of the Hero World Challenge he hosts this week in the Bahamas.
The 46-year-old, a two-time Dubai Desert Classic champion, was all set to take part in the championship featuring 20 of the top players in the world but pulled out on Monday because of Plantar Fasciitis in his right foot.
“It’s a circle with me right now. As I was ramping up and had to walk more, the worse it got. When you get Plantar Fasciitis, the worst thing you can do is walk, and I was walking more and more, trying to get my legs ready for this event. I just kept making it worse. I had to shut it down and unfortunately, I will just be the host of the event and Ranger Rick out here,” said the 15-time major champion.
“It’s going to take probably a month or two of rest. But also, it was the ramping-up process that did it. It’s a balancing act, right? How hard do you push it to make progress, while not pushing it too hard to go off the edge and you set yourself back? That’s been the balancing act the whole year. I did a lot of beach walks trying to simulate the sand out here, and my foot just did not like that very much.”
A total of 9 rounds
Woods played a total of nine rounds in 2022 — four at The Masters, three before pulling out at the PGA Championship and two before missing the cut at the 150th Open Championship. He was scheduled to play in three events this month — the 18-hole Match partnering Rory McIlroy against Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and the 36-hole PNC Father-Son, where he partners his son Charlie. While Woods is still confident of playing the other two events where he is allowed to use a golf cart, the professional in him would not allow mobility assistance in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
Woods, who is now ranked 1,266th in the world, said of the Official World Golf Rankings: “It’s a flawed system. That’s something we all here recognise.
The field at Dubai got less points than Sea Island and more of the top players were there in Dubai, so obviously there’s a flawed system. How do you fix it? You know, those are meetings we’re going to have. We’re going to have it with OWGR committee and as well as the main tours that are involved in it and somehow come up with a better system than the one that is in place now.”
How hard do you push it to make progress, while not pushing it too hard to go off the edge and you set yourself back? That’s been the balancing act the whole year.” Tiger Woods » 15-time major champion