As a kid, Tiger Woods and his father, Earl, used to go to a corner of the back nine of the Navy Golf Course in Cypress, California, and hit balls from their own shag bag.
“I got them mostly out of the ditch from other players hitting balls, and those were my shag balls,” Tiger recalled at the PNC Championship this week. “I’d pick the trees on the right to hit to, and he’d pick the trees on the left to hit to, and then we’d play in the last three holes kind of towards dark. And it was game on. And so it was, OK, you do your work, I do my work, and then let’s go head-to-head.”
Asked whether he did the same with his 13-year-old son Charlie, Tiger flashed his trademark wide smile and said, “All the time.”
Last week, rather than going head-to-head – Tiger said Charlie has outdriven him but yet to beat him – Tiger and Charlie teamed up for the third straight year in the PNC Championship in Orlando at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. This anecdote may have summed up why Tiger was willing to limp around a golf course at a Silly Season event. Father and son, who limped along with him due to a bum ankle, finished T-8 after struggling a bit on Sunday and shooting 65 with two bogeys, but the score was immaterial. It’s a two-person scramble, a glorified exhibition, but it’s become the one event that Tiger won’t miss. He even said he’d risk a setback to play, something he wisely avoided at the Hero World Challenge by withdrawing with plantar fasciitis.
It wasn’t exactly the result we were looking for, but being able to play with Charlie is always a win in my book. pic.twitter.com/7vBcIvg3Ns
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) December 18, 2022
For a guy who managed to play just nine competitive rounds on the PGA Tour this year, Tiger kept busy in December between his hosting duties in the Bahamas, playing with Rory McIlroy in The Match and with Charlie in Orlando at the PNC. Tiger divulged in his Hero press conference that he’s undergone more surgeries this year, which was news to the world, but wouldn’t disclose anything about them. His plantar fasciitis prevented him from walking a golf course for five straight days in the Bahamas, but he can get around well enough with a cart. He showed at The Match that he still has enough speed and distance to compete on the PGA Tour, and outdrove Justin Thomas on multiple occasions on Saturday.
“I wasn’t joking yesterday when I said it,” Thomas said on Sunday. “When he’s feeling well, he’s longer than I am with a driver. I might be able to hit it further than him if I go after one but consistently, I mean, he’s hitting it farther than I am right now.”
Justin Thomas yesterday on Tiger:
“He 100 percent hits it farther than I do with the driver right now, and when he's feeling well and moving well like he was today, he can do anything he wants.”— Chantel McCabe (@chantel_mccabe) December 18, 2022
The challenge for Tiger is to get healthy enough to walk four straight days. That hasn’t changed and likely will impact how much longer he can compete on the PGA Tour. (Tiger turns 47 on Dec. 30, and the Champions Tour and the ability to use a golf cart are seeming like a match made in heaven in his 50s.) In his limited play this year, Tiger’s stamina wasn’t quite there and he ran out of gas, most notably at the PGA Championship, where he withdrew after the third round.
“Every day is different,” Thomas added. “I mean, yesterday he was clearly moving really — I could just tell on the range seeing him hit balls, you could just see, he was moving really well, and today obviously wasn’t moving as well … I’m sure he would trade 10 yards to be able to walk every day and feeling well. But yeah, it’s very impressive. You can tell, he’s very, very strong, very fit right now. It’s just dealing with the other issues.”
No less than Padraig Harrington and Jim “Bones” Mackay gushed at Tiger’s play. Will he be able to tee it up at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February, one of the elevated events and a place where he serves as tournament host? Or potentially get some rounds under his belt during the Florida Swing ahead of the Masters?
Only time will tell, but when asked how far he’s come in a year’s time since surprising most people by playing at the PNC just nine months after his car accident in February 2021, Tiger said, “A lot. The first year, I had back surgery and last year I played with a broken leg. So this year, nothing was broken, but it was good that all the pieces are there again all lined up.
“Just, again, the plantar fasciitis is no fun, and now I get to truly recover and heal and progress forward on this because there’s so many good things that I’ve been able to do physically, be able to hit the golf ball and practice and do everything in a standstill, but I haven’t been able to get from point A to point B, and we’re obviously going to work on this.”
That process begins by taking care of his feet. Tiger needs rest and more rest.
“We shut it all down and take care of this foot so that I can ramp up properly,” he said. “As you’ve seen, I can hit golf balls. I can do all that. I can practice at home. I can hit shots around the green. I can do all that. I just can’t get from point A to point B.”
Point A might as well stand for Augusta. Here’s to a healthier 2023 for Tiger.
