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Tiger Woods and his limp back at Masters, but for how much longer?

April 4, 2023

By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods is back at the Masters, along with his slight limp. It is not every step, every minute. But it is there. And as much hardware as he has in his mended right leg, the limp figures to be with him for as long as he plays the sport he once dominated.

As for how long he keeps playing Augusta National? That’s a little harder to foresee.

Woods conceded that each trip to the Masters – at his age (47) and with surgeries on both legs and his back over the last decade – makes him wonder if it’s going to be the last one.

“I don’t know how many more I have in me,” Woods said Tuesday.

This will be his 25th time playing the Masters, and Woods still is surprised there was a 24th. He was still recovering last year from crashing his car near Rancho Palos Verdes at more than 85 mph, crushing bones in his right leg so badly he said doctors contemplated amputation.

“I didn’t know if I was going to play again at that time,” Woods said. “For some reason, everything kind of came together and I pushed it a little bit and I was able to make the cut, which was nice.”

Woods has an enormous presence at Augusta National because of his impact on the game, not to mention the five green jackets he has won, the last one in 2019. A year ago, the internet lit up with aviation tracking sites that followed his flight plan to the club for a pre-Masters scouting report.

And yet now he gives this Masters a sense of normalcy.

Golf has been consumed with the great divide between the establishment and Saudi-funded LIV Golf, which has 18 players at the Masters who are suspended from playing regular PGA Tour events. There is speculation about how players on both sides will get along.

And then there is Woods at the Masters. Azaleas and dogwoods are in bloom. Thousands follow him in practice rounds. And Thursday will bring a familiar refrain from the first tee: “Fore please, Tiger Woods driving.”

From there, no one is sure what to expect, Woods included.

“He looks good,” said Rory McIlroy, who played Monday with Woods, 63-year-old Fred Couples and 20-year-old Tom Kim. “You know, if he didn’t have to walk up these hills and have all of that, I’d say he’d be one of the favorites. He’s got all of the shots. It’s just that physical limitation of walking 72 holes, especially on a golf course as hilly as this.”

Woods has matured, through time and too many surgeries, from the relentless champion to a guardian willing to pass along some of the local knowledge he picked up as a younger man from Couples and Raymond Floyd, from Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal.

He still wants to compete. There would be no point in staying after the Masters Club dinner Tuesday night if that were not the case. And he still thinks he can find a little magic.

He has said everywhere he has played over the last year – a total of 11 rounds in four tournaments, one of them a 36-hole exhibition in a cart with his son – that hitting shots isn’t the problem. It’s getting to the next one.

“Yeah, mobility, it’s not where I would like it,” Woods said. “I’ve said to you guys before, I’m very lucky to have this leg – it’s mine. Yes, it has been altered and there’s some hardware in there, but it’s still mine. It has been tough and will always be tough. The ability and endurance of what my leg will do going forward will never be the same. I understand that.

“That’s why I can’t prepare and play as many tournaments as I like, but that’s my future, and that’s OK. I’m OK with that.”

Woods found a small victory in just playing last year, and making the cut was a bonus. He has never missed the cut at the Masters as a pro, and that streak is on the line again. Then again, he showed up at Riviera Country Club in February for his first PGA Tour event in seven months and played all four rounds.

“My game is better than it was last year at this particular time,” he said. “My endurance is better. But it aches a little bit more than it did last year just because at that particular time when I came back, I really had not pushed it that often. And I had a little window in which I did push it and was able to come back.

“I just have to be cognizant of how much I can push it,” he said. “Like Rory was saying, I can hit a lot of shots but the difficulty for me is going to be the walking going forward. I wish it could be easier.”

So why bother showing up?

Woods long has said there’s no point in showing up if he didn’t think he could win. He teased with a 67 in the third round at Riviera. The shots are still in there. And he knows Augusta National better than any championship course he plays.

He pointed to Couples, who swings freely and walks casually and still can hold his own. Couples shares the record with Gary Player for most consecutive cuts made at the Masters with 23. Woods can tie them if he makes it to the weekend.

Woods was asked if he felt the younger players to whom he passes along some of his knowledge perceive him as any kind of a threat. In his 13 PGA Tour events since he won his record-tying 82nd title on the PGA Tour, his best finish is a tie for ninth. That was before the car crash.

“Whether I’m a threat to them or not, who knows?” he said. “People probably didn’t think I was a threat in 2019, either, but kind of turned out OK.”

MICKELSON BACK AFTER A YEAR AWAY

Phil Mickelson was back at Augusta National on Tuesday and there were times when it felt as if nothing had changed.

He strode purposefully through the back nine during a practice round with LIV Golf buddies Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch and Harold Varner III. He split the fairway on the 18th with his tee shot, while Gooch and Varner played from the trees, and stuck his approach to about 10 feet. Polite applause greeted him at every turn.

Things aren’t the same for three-time Masters champion, though.

Ever since making some controversial remarks about LIV Golf, where Mickelson is now a star attraction, he has been the fulcrum in a golf civil war pitting the PGA Tour against the Saudi-backed breakaway league. And the furor surrounding him was so great at this time a year ago that Mickelson made the difficult decision to skip what he called “my favorite week.”

It was the first time since he was recovering from a broken leg in 1994 that Mickelson missed the Masters.

“Being here and being a part of it, and being able to experience this great place and what it means is so fun,” he said, “because as a kid you grow up dreaming about being a part of this. You dream about winning it, being in contention, and then when you actually are a pro and you’re playing here, you’re like, ‘Wow, I want to be a part of this every year.’

“That’s the coolest thing about having won here,” Mickelson added, “is that you’re a part of this event and part of the history.”

Mickelson spent Tuesday fondly recalling his amateur days, when he spent nights in the Crow’s Nest, a quaint-if-somewhat spartan accommodation on the second floor of the Augusta National clubhouse. And he was looking forward to Tuesday night’s champions dinner, when reigning winner Scottie Scheffler joins one of the most exclusive clubs in sports.

On the menu: cheeseburger sliders and firecracker shrimp, tortilla soup, Texas ribeye and blackened redfish, a variety of side dishes and, to top it off, chocolate chip cookies served on a warm skillet with milk-and-cookies ice cream.

“I always fight the weight demons and that cookie, that’s going to be tough for me to pass,” Mickelson said, “but I got to do it.”

Also on the menu: the potential for some uncomfortable moments.

Six former champions are now members of the Saudi circuit, and plenty of words have been exchanged between the two factions. The latest barbs came from 1992 champion Couples, who is decidedly pro-PGA Tour and said during a PGA Tour Champions breakfast last month in Newport Beach that Mickelson was a “nutbag” and Sergio Garcia was “a clown.”

“Fred and I are longtime friends and we’ve had a lot of great experiences in the game of golf,” said Mickelson, who wore the logo of his LIV Golf team, HyFlyers GC, on his grey shirt and black cap during Tuesday’s practice round.

“I think the world of him,” Mickelson said, “and I hope we have a chance to have more great experiences with him as well.”

Phil Mickelson watches his shot on the 12th hole during a practice round on Tuesday ahead of the Masters tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Couples sounded open to it Monday, though he stopped short of apologizing for any of his comments. And while he wasn’t grouped with Mickelson for the first two rounds – Couples will go off with Russell Henley and Alex Noren on Thursday about four hours before Mickelson tees off with Tom Hoge and Si Woo Kim – Couples doesn’t mind playing with him, either.

“I would love to be paired with Phil. I mean, he’s one of the best players that ever played,” Couples said. “He loves this place as much as I do, and if we did, we’d look at each other on the first hole and we’d have a good time.”

Mickelson is only two years removed from his triumph at Kiawah Island, when at age 50 he became the oldest major winner with his second PGA Championship. Yet his game is far from where it was or should be. Mickelson has broken 70 twice in nine rounds across three LIV Golf events, and his best finish is 27th in a field of just 48 players.

Still, Varner said after their practice round Tuesday, Mickelson seems “super-engaged right now.”

“I don’t know if that’s because it’s Augusta,” Varner said.

Maybe it is.

Or more precisely, maybe it’s being back at Augusta.

“I’ve got to be realistic. I haven’t scored the way I want to,” Mickelson said before heading off to lunch, “but I do see a lot of positive signs. I’m going to try to just be patient, whether it’s this week or soon, because things are about to click.”

CAN’T DAMPEN TOM KIM’S ENTHUSIASM

Regardless of how Tom Kim’s first Masters turns out, he’ll leave Augusta National with some great memories.

Getting invited to play a practice round with Woods, McIlroy and Couples before a coveted major tournament will do that for a budding 20-year-old star.

“A dream come true,” Kim said Tuesday of his Monday practice round that included a little bit of traditional tomfoolery on the par-3 16th hole.

At Woods’ urging, all four golfers simultaneously attempted to skip their golf balls across the pond and onto the green. While the other three managed to get their balls to hop across the water, Kim misfired, sending a line drive over the pond where it hit the green and kept on going.

Looking back, Kim could only chuckle at his failed attempt.

“I tried to hit it a little low and just airmailed the green,” said Kim, who won twice on the PGA Tour last year. “It didn’t come out low enough. I hit it pin-high, and I’m just glad I didn’t hit anyone.”

But Kim wasn’t going to let a failed trick shot ruin his day.

His first memories of the Masters are of Woods’ famous chip in on that same hole in 2005, when the five-time champion got his Nike ball to bend along the gentle slope of the green before coming to rest on the edge of the cup and then falling in, setting off a raucous celebration.

“For as long as I can remember, that was the biggest thing,” Kim said of Woods’ epic birdie.

Now Kim has his own memory from 16 to cherish.

“It was a dream come true for me, really,” Kim said. “My first memory of just watching golf was the Masters and Tiger winning it, and for me to be able to share my first official practice round with him was a dream come true. And to not just play with Tiger but to have Fred Couples and Rory join us, it was a dream.”

MASTERS PAIRINGS

The Masters is treating this tournament with no significant changes, from the players it chose for formal press conferences right down to the tee times.

There were no awkward groups of LIV Golf players and PGA Tour loyalists. McIlroy won’t be paired with Patrick Reed.

Mickelson is playing with Tom Hoge and Si Woo Kim. Cameron Smith should have a quiet time playing alongside former Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan and Sungjae Im of South Korea.

Meanwhile, Woods will be alongside Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland, while McIlroy has Kim and Match Play winner Sam Burns.

Defending champion Scheffler has a traditional grouping with the U.S. Amateur champion, Sam Bennett, with Max Homa along for the ride.

However, none of the LIV players can be found in the four featured pairings that will have their own streaming channel during the opening round.

TIGER MEMORIES

Players often notice subtle changes to Augusta National, real or imagined, that are not recorded as official updates. One of them might be the 16th green. Masters records indicate the last change was in 1973 when the left section of the pond was filled.

Not according to Woods.

He says the green has been redesigned since his famous chip-in in 2005 on the par-3. The topic came up Tuesday when asked if he had ever tried to replicate the shot, in which he pitched it up the slope and watched it make a U-turn, trickle down, pause on the edge of the cup and drop for birdie.

“Yeah, the green has changed. There is a new back, deeper hole location there that they tried to fit,” Woods said. “But my chip there in 2005 is not the same. The green is not the same as it was then.”

Woods doesn’t pay attention to the chip, anyway. He says when he sees a replay of that iconic shot, he tries to figure out how he got there in the first place.

“I did not draw a bad lie on that tee shot to hit it that bad,” he said. “If you want to go back and see the chip, OK, that’s cool. But to hit an 8-iron that bad and that far off line, and I had a perfect lie, was not very good.”

THOMAS CONTROLLING TENSION

Justin Thomas arrived at Augusta National this week with a new approach for his eighth Masters – which includes putting less pressure on himself.

“I feel like in the past, I’ve come in here so tense, like ‘Oh, I’m geared up and I’m ready to go.’ Like I’m going to tear this place up,” Thomas said. “And just as soon as one thing goes wrong, I mean, my mind is in a blender. It’s like, ‘Well, I didn’t think I was going to hit it over here. I thought I was going to hit over here.’

“Next thing you know, you shoot 73, 74 the first day you’re just playing catch-up.”

Thomas has won the PGA Championship twice, but he has only two top-10 finishes at the Masters. He came in fourth in 2020.

Thomas has vowed to trust himself this week, even if a shot doesn’t land where he hopes it will.

“I definitely think that you can want things too bad and try too hard,” Thomas said.

TIGER AND CUTS

Tiger Woods has been a strong proponent of cuts on the PGA Tour, and he’s holding out hope that limited field events – like the Genesis Invitational at Riviera that he hosts – will still have a 36-hole cut.

The eight designated events during the regular season will have fields between 70 and 80 players for a $20 million purse.

“I certainly am pushing for my event to have a cut,” Woods said. “Maybe the player-hosted events may have cuts. … That is still in flux.”

Woods said he is talking with Jack Nicklaus, who created the Memorial, along with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and the tour board.

“I still think that there needs to be a penalty for not playing well,” he said. “Every event shouldn’t be always guaranteed 72 holes. I think that there should be a cut there. But we are trying to figure that out.”

AP sports writers Dave Skretta and Steve Reed contributed to this report.

Orange County Register

News Details

Tiger Woods and his limp back at Masters, but for how much longer?

MICKELSON BACK AFTER A YEAR AWAY

CAN’T DAMPEN TOM KIM’S ENTHUSIASM

MASTERS PAIRINGS

TIGER MEMORIES

THOMAS CONTROLLING TENSION

TIGER AND CUTS

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