Woods to return to action at Riviera next week
TULSA, OK - MAY 20: Tiger Woods hits his shot from a bunker on the 11th hole during the second round of the 2022 PGA Championship at the Southern Hills on May 20, 2022 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Photo by Darren Carroll/PGA of America
Tiger Woods will make his first appearance on the PGA Tour since The Open last July when he tees it up in next week's $ 20 million Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club.
The 15-time Major winner missed the cut at St Andrews after rounds of 78 and 75 and while he played from a cart with his son Charlie in the two-day PNC Championship last November, just days after withdrawing from his Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, this is his first non-Major tour start since the 2020 Zozo Championship.
"I'm ready to play an ACTUAL PGA Tour event next week," Woods tweeted, several hours before the field was due to be published for next week's $20 million designated event.
Woods withdrew from the Hero World Challenge before the start citing plantar fasciitis.
He is tied with Sam Snead for the most PGA Tour wins with 82 but admitted at the PNC CHAmpionship last year that walking was his biggest challenge.
"Well, it's been a lot harder than people probably imagine," he said of last season, when he played just the Masters (tied 47th), then withdrew from the US PGA after rounds of 74, 69 and 79 before missing the cut in The Open.
"There's some of the players who are very close to me know what I've kind of gone through, and they're the ones that keep encouraging me to back off a little bit. But that's not really in my nature. My nature is trying to get better. And I have. And through work ethic, I was able to, as I said, play and compete in three major championships this year."
Woods stunned observers with his swing speed in the PNC Championship and while Padraig Harrington believes he will win a 16th Major, the current world number 1,283 is just battling to walk.
"I can hit the golf ball. I just have a tougher time getting from Point A to Point B," he said last year. "Hopefully after starting Monday, we'll kind of try and fix this thing and get it healed up.”
Woods is battling to recover from serious leg injuries he sustained in a California car crash just two years ago.
He admitted last year he was grateful just to have his leg after coming close to losing it in the crash.
“So I have my own two legs,” he said during the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor last year. "I tell you, I'm not going to take it for granted anymore, some people do. But people who have come close or lost a limb understand what I'm saying, but you have difficult days and also you have great days and first are not what they used to be, that's for sure.
"But they are great days in which I can spend with my kids and do things that they can do at a slightly slower pace, but I can still do it with them.”
Speaking the week before The Open, he admitted he did not know how long he could continue playing.
“I don't know,” Woods said. "I really don't. If you asked me last year whether I would play golf again, all of my surgeons would have said no. But here I am playing two major championships this year.
“I will always be able to play golf, whether it's this leg or someone else's leg or false leg or different body pieces that have been he placed or fused, I'll always be able to play. Now if you say play at a championship level, well, that window is definitely not as long as I would like it to be.”
Woods will be making his 15th start at Riviera in the PGA Tour event where he has four top 10s and back-to-back runner-up finishes in 1998 and 1999 but no wins.
