Tiger Woods is days away from playing in just his second event of the year when he attempts to claim a sixth Masters title.
The 15-time Major winner has been preparing for the event with practice rounds, including one on Sunday after his arrival at Augusta National where he even had a vintage Wilson Staff putter among his options.
One player who has seen first-hand how Woods has been performing during his preparations is 2021 runner-up Will Zalatoris. The 27-year-old is competing at this year’s event for the first time in two years after back surgery following his withdrawal from the 2023 edition.
On Monday, he played nine holes alongside Woods in another practice session, and afterwards, he reported to the media that his 48-year-old playing partner had no issues with his swing in the build-up to the event.
He said: “He played great today. He outdrove me a couple times so there was some chirping going on. So, you know, he looks great. He's moving as well as he can be. Again, with everything he's gone through, it's pretty amazing to see how good he's swinging it.”
"He played great today, it's pretty amazing to see how good he's swinging it" 🏌️Will Zalatoris shares his thoughts on practising with Tiger Woods today 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ShEYqIyuvVApril 8, 2024
Woods had to withdraw during the third round of the 2023 event before undergoing a subtalar fusion procedure on his right ankle days later. That meant he only returned to action at December’s Hero World Challenge, which also marked Zalatoris' first event after his own surgery, and the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship winner revealed that Woods has been a big help to him during his recovery.
He explained: “You know, it's kind of more of just, ‘Hey, how you feeling? You feel this? You feel that?’ The patience game is really hard. Obviously he had gone through way more than what I had gone through.
"Having the same surgeons kind of the same team, you know, just having the conversation I guess about, 'Hey, after this amount of time how do you feel?'”
As for Woods’ record at The Masters, which includes making 23 successive cuts, one short of the outright record, Zalatoris is in no doubt about his legacy.
He added: “It's just everything the guy has done. You could just sit there and analyze the same stats for his entire career and put him in five different buckets and every one of them is never going to be broken.”
