Tiger Woods has returned to the spotlight with what might be termed a lack-of-progress report. His rehab from a seventh back operation is not going as smoothly as he had hoped, and he has not been approached about becoming the USA’s captain for the next Ryder Cup.
He did offer more fuel to talk about a streamlined PGA Tour, which he said could result in “a financial windfall for everyone”, and said the Future Competition Committee (FCC), on which he sits, is trying to create “global opportunities for our players”.
Details were lacking on some issues, but there was one hard fact when asked if Ryder Cup captain was a role he wanted for 2027 at Adare Manor in Ireland. “No one has asked me about it,” Woods said before his Hero World Challenge knees-up in the Bahamas. When the inquisitor said he was asking, Woods repeated: “No one’s asked me about it.”
Woods turned down the role for the USA’s defeat at Bethpage Black in September, citing too many other commitments. His friendship with JP McManus, the owner of Adare Manor, means many have had him down as the captain-in-waiting, but you might have expected some contact from the PGA of America. Perhaps this was an unsubtle hint.
Woods is undergoing rehabilitation from back surgery and will miss the pre-Christmas PNC Championship
TIM HEITMAN/GETTY IMAGES
Woods, who turns 50 this month, was on surer, more familiar ground when attention turned to his fitness. He has not played since missing the cut at last year’s Open Championship, and has completed only one event — finishing 60th at the Masters — in two years.
The world No2,454 had disc replacement surgery in October and said: “It’s six weeks last Friday and it’s been slow — I can’t really do much. Now we’ve got the OK to start cranking up a little bit in the gym, I’ve started strengthening and doing a little bit more of the rotational component that I haven’t been able to do. I just got cleared last week to chip and putt.”
That means he will not be playing with his 16-year-old son, Charlie, at the pre-Christmas PNC Championship, as he has previously, and will miss at least the first chunk of his TGL indoor league. “A disc replacement takes time. It’s not as long as a fusion, thank God, but it’s going to take time,” Woods added.
“I’d like to come back to just playing golf again. I haven’t played golf in a long time. It’s been a tough year. I’ve had a lot of things happen on and off the golf course.”
Woods is expected to miss the start of his TGL indoor league, which begins on December 28
CARMEN MANDATO/TGL/GETTY IMAGES
It is hard to think there is much left in Tiger’s tank, but 15 majors mean people will keep asking. Turning 50 means he will be eligible for the PGA Champions Tour, but Woods said he had not looked at the seniors’ tour schedule in any depth. “I need time to figure this out with my back and with my body,” he said. “As I start to get more explosive and start to rotate and see what I’ve got, then I can find out or assess what tournaments I could play in.”
It has seemed obvious for some time that Woods’s most significant role is now off the course. He said the FCC had so far held three meetings, with a new, leaner schedule likely to be rolled out in 2027.
“We start talking to the players, what would they like to see, how can players have the promotion-relegation, how can we have more player equity involvement,” he said. “These are all things that we’re trying to include and all the things that we’re trying to change.
“Yes, there’s going to be some eggs that are spilt and crushed and broken, but I think that in the end, we’re going to have a product that is far better than what we have now for everyone involved.”
A truncated 20-event schedule, plus majors, would no doubt go down well with the DP World Tour. “Scarcity” has become a PGA Tour buzzword in recent times, led by the new chief executive, Brian Rolapp. Effectively, less is more, and Woods underlined the theory.
“If you have scarcity at a certain level, it will be better because it will drive more eyes because there will be less time,” he said. “But don’t forget the golfing year is long so there’s other places around the world. There’s a scarcity side of it that’s not as scary as people might think.”