Masters will miss Woods’ iconic shirt
Woods changed golf at Augusta, but it’s unclear if he’ll return
From the dogwoods and their white blooms to thousands of azalea bushes bursting with purple and pink, all the April colors have returned to Augusta National except for one.
No red shirt.
Tiger Woods in his traditional Sunday color has become an indelible part of the Masters over the last 25 years. It dates to the practice round he played with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, after which Nicklaus suggested Woods might wind up with more green jackets than the King and the Bear combined.
So there’s a big void this year. “You can’t — especially at Augusta — you can’t go there and not think about the guy,” two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange said. “Changed the game we knew basically in front of our eyes at Augusta.”
The 1997 Masters remains a watershed moment in golf. Woods broke 20 records that week when he won by 12 shots as a 21-year-old in his first year playing as a pro. From there, he carried golf to a new wave of popularity and, because of television contracts that followed, made those around him richer.
The 2019 Masters was the perfect bookend. Four back surgeries, four knee surgeries, public embarrassment from his private affairs, and at 43 he overcame it all for his 15th major, fifth green jacket and pure joy when he scooped his son into his arms.
Woods’ absence is nothing new, only the circumstances. But there was always belief he would return, even when the pain in his lower back was so bad that he barely could walk at the Masters Club dinner for champions in 2017. And there was hope he could win again, which he did.
It’s too early to say whether Woods will ever compete again at the Masters. He won a U.S. Open with shredded knee ligaments and two stress fractures. Four back surgeries didn’t keep him from a green jacket.
This might be asking too much, especially now that he’s 45 and wasn’t showing much form even before his horrific car crash.