TROON, Scotland – Tiger Woods may not be lighting up the leaderboards these days but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten what it takes to be a great champion.
Woods, 48, is turning into a regular Arnold Palmer these days. Remember how Palmer used to famously send letters to the winners of all the major professional golf tournaments? It was a wonderful gesture and something that players saved and cherish.
Well, Tiger isn’t exactly penning love letters to his fellow pros but in his dotage he’s turned over a new leaf and started to become the elder statesman whose words of congratulations – or in the case of Rory McIlroy words of encouragement – mean the world to players.
Earlier this week, Tiger acknowledged that he waited a week for things to die down after the U.S. Open to text McIlroy and essentially tell him to keep his head up and better days are ahead after his heartbreaking defeat (more on Tiger’s text and McIlroy’s phone number change here).
It also became public that Tiger congratulated Bryson DeChambeau on winning the U.S. Open in June. DeChambeau had previously told Golfweek that Tiger had gone radio silent since he departed for LIV Golf, but he made an exception to tell DeChambeau job well done at Pinehurst.
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“It is the first communication, but I’ll say he’s competitor and I have a lot of respect for him,” said DeChambeau, who used to play practice rounds with Tiger and whose game he often praised before he chose to join LIV. “I’m sure that winning two U.S. Opens definitely helped, I guess, for him coming up and saying congrats. I don’t know what his position is, but it was very thoughtful, and I was appreciative of it.”
And DeChambeau wasn’t the only recent major winner to receive warm words from Tiger for his major accomplishment. Tiger was paired with Xander Schauffele, winner of the PGA Championship in May, and approached him on the putting green before their opening round on Thursday.
“He said congrats to me,” Schauffele said. “He asked me how it felt on the putting green, then I asked him how it felt to have a hundred of them. We had a nice chuckle before the round. It puts it into perspective when you look at someone that’s done what he’s done, only having one.”
Much like Palmer before him, Tiger’s simple gesture seems to have gone a long way with his fellow competitors.
