Nine holes of golf at Augusta National today will decide once and for all whether Tiger Woods tees off for this year’s Masters.
His participation would mark a stunning comeback less than 14 months after suffering serious injuries in an horrific car crash.
Speaking yesterday, the five-time Masters winner said he had every intention of taking his place but that he would allow himself a final nine holes to be certain of his body holding up for four rounds.
It will be Woods’s first round of golf in an official ranking event since the Covid-delayed Masters back in 2020 when he failed to successfully defend the Green Jacket he had won a year previously.
To pull that off again now seems unthinkable, but so did his participation in the event barely a fortnight ago.
Three-time Major winner Padraig Harrington suggested Woods would be teeing off tomorrow for his opening round only if he genuinely believed he could add a 16th Major title to his collection.
“Tiger won’t play here unless he thinks he can win,” said Harrington. “He’s not coming to wave at the crowds. He’s coming to try and win the tournament.
“It looks like he’ll tee it up and, if he does, he feels like he can win, and that’s impressive.”
Following his high-speed car crash in February last year, the first police officers on the scene said he was lucky to escape alive. And Woods later revealed that surgeons operating on the open fractures on his right leg had even talked about amputation.
Despite what he called some dark days to overcome to get back to competitive golf, Woods agreed with the sentiments of Harrington and others who are backing him as a potential candidate for a sixth Green Jacket come Sunday.
Asked if he could equal Jack Nicklaus’s record Masters wins of six, Woods said: “I do. I don’t show up to an event unless I think I can win it.
“I feel like I can still do it. I still have the hands to do it, the body is moving good enough.
“I have been in worse situations and won tournaments. I feel like if I can still compete at the highest level I am going to but, if I feel like I can’t, you won’t see me out here.
“There will be a day when it won’t happen, and I’ll know when that is.”
