It’s been seven years since Tiger Woods was last in St Andrews for The Open, and he’s done a lot of living in them. He’s had countless rounds of surgery, a handful of different relationships, an arrest, spent months out of the sport, made his comeback win at Augusta National, then been through that car crash and subsequent rehab. Back in 2015 Woods was in his wilderness years, and he ended up missing the cut here. “Retirement?” he said back then. “I’m a long way from that.” He looked and sounded little different this time. He’s far enough along now to know this might be the last time he plays in a major here.
It could be another six or seven years again before the Old Course comes back around on the Open rota. “If it is that long, I don’t know whether I will be able to physically compete at this level by then. It’s also one of the reasons why I wanted to play in this championship. I don’t know what my career is going to be like. I know I’m not going to play a full schedule ever again. My body just won’t allow me to do that. So I don’t know how many Open championships I have left at St Andrews.” It wasn’t so long ago that he wasn’t even sure whether he’d played his last already.
