Woods has 5th back surgery

Tiger Woods has suffered a setback with his back, disclosing Tuesday that he recently had a fifth surgery that will keep him from starting the year until after the West Coast Swing on the PGA Tour.

Woods will not play next week in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, which he has won seven times, most recently in 2013. He also won the U.S. Open in 2008 at Torrey Pines, which hosts the U.S. Open again in June.

He also will miss the Genesis Invitational on Feb. 18-21 at Riviera, where he serves as tournament host.

In a statement from his TGR Foundation, which Woods also tweeted, he did not say when he had the microdiscetomy surgery. It was to remove a pressurized disc fragment that was giving him nerve pain during the PNC Championship last month that he played with 11-monthold son Charlie.

Doctors said the operation was a success and predicted a full recovery, according to the statement.

The year Woods last won at Torrey Pines is when back problems began to surface. He had his first microdisectomy right before the 2014 Masters, and then he had two more in September and October of 2015.

The fourth surgery in April 2017 was a major one, to fuse his lower spine. Woods’ return was successful, leading to a victory in the 2018 Tour Championship — his first in five years — and he capped it off by winning the Masters in 2019, his 15th major and his first in 11 years.

When he won the Zozo Championship in Japan in the fall of 2019, he tied Sam Snead’s career victory record with No. 82, and the record seemed to be only a matter of time. But he was never in serious contention all of last year and missed a full month with a minor back issue before golf was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

When he returned in July, he didn’t finish better than a tie for 37th at the PGA Championship in seven tournaments he played. In six of those events where he made the cut, he finished a combined 107 shots out of the lead.

The World Golf Championships event recently played in Mexico has moved to Florida and follows the West Coast Swing. Then it’s Bay Hill, where Woods has won eight times (all before his back surgeries) but has skipped the last two years, and The Players Championship. There are three more tournaments after that before the Masters.

MLB

DODGERS HALL OF FAMER SUTTON DIES AT 75 » Don Sutton, a Hall of Fame pitcher who was a stalwart of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rotation spanning an era from Sandy Koufax to Fernando Valenzuela, died Tuesday. He was 75.

The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, said Sutton died at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, after a long struggle with cancer. The Atlanta Braves, for whom Sutton was a long-time broadcaster, said he died in his sleep.

A four-time All-Star, Sutton had a career record of 324-256 and an ERA of 3.26 while pitching for the Dodgers, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics, California Angels and the Dodgers again in 1988, his final season.