Why ask a scorpion why it stings, a lion why it eats red meat, or Tiger Woods whether he believes he can win? Woods has been answering that question in the very same way for the last 25 years now. But on Tuesday someone put it to him again. “This time last year, you said you definitely would not be here unless you thought you had a good chance of winning the tournament. Does that still stand?” And this time Woods’ answer was a little different to the one we’ve grown used to. In fact, for the first time in his life, he didn’t really have one.
Woods very deliberately preferred to concentrate on the second part of the journalist’s question, about how his physical condition compared to this time last year, when he scored 71, 74, 78, 78, and finished in 47th place. “I think my game is better than it was last year at this particular time. I think my endurance is better. But my leg aches a little bit more than it did last year.”
Last year’s Masters, Woods explained, was the first time since his car accident that he had really pushed his body. Back then he didn’t really know what it was capable of. Now he does, and the difference in him is clear. He has had to make peace with the idea that he will never be able to play the way he used to ever again. “I just have to be cognisant of how much I can push it. I can hit a lot of shots but the difficulty for me is going to be my walking, going forward. It is what it is. I wish it could be easier.” But “that’s my future, and I’m OK with that”.
Woods talks like a man who is a lot older than 47, but then he has done a lot more living than most men his age. He blamed those two rounds of 78 on the weekend here last year on the cold weather, which caused his body to clam up, and described his achievement in making the cut as a victory in itself. “I still would have liked to have gotten the win, but I didn’t, but I think I got my own smaller version of that, to be able to come back and just be able to play.” The truth is that he simply doesn’t know how many more majors he has left.
“I don’t know how many more I have in me,” Woods admitted, but every time he does play here, he says, he’s aware it might be his last. It’s changed his way of thinking. He spoke about being able to “appreciate the time that I have here” and says that the pleasure he takes in the game has changed. “It is different. I’m not able to compete and play as many tournaments or do the things I’ve been able to do over the years, but to be able to still share this game and create new memories with my son and also pass on some of the things that I’ve learned has been fantastic.”
These days, Woods says he takes a lot of his pleasure from catching up with his friends at the Champions dinner, and his customary practice round with his old pal Fred Couples. Which is a big shift for a man who has dedicated his entire life to the ruthless pursuit of winning. Not, of course, that he has entirely given up on the idea of competing here just yet. Woods says himself that he’s much too stubborn to quit on it altogether, and there’s still a hint of a twinkle in his eye when he’s asked whether he believes the younger players think he’s a threat.
“Who knows?” Woods jokes. “People probably didn’t think I was a threat in 2019 either but kind of turned out OK.” If he has a chance, he says, it lies in how well he knows the course. He may not have been up here playing it as often as he used to do in the run-up to Masters week. But he’s been doing it in his head, instead. “I’ve been able to recreate a lot of the chip shots at home in my backyard,” he says, “trying to simulate shots and rehearsing again and again each and every flag location, each and every shot I would possibly hit.
“I’ve gone through so many different scenarios in my head. You know I don’t sleep very well, so going through it and rummaging through the data bank and how to hit shots from each and every place and rehearsing it; that’s the only way that I can compete here. I don’t have the physical tournaments under my belt. I haven’t played that much. But if there’s any one golf course that I can come back, like I did last year, it’s here, just because I know the golf course.” Which sounds like another way of saying that he’s dreaming.
