Tiger Woods: Hopefully I can play all four Majors this year

Tiger Woods has reiterated his desire to compete in all four Major Championships this season after making an encouraging return to PGA Tour action at the Genesis Invitational.

The 15-time Major champion made a miraculous return to the game last year at the Masters Tournament, 14 months on from a career-threatening car crash, with the American playing the PGA Championship the following month before missing the cut at The Open in July.

Woods was set to make a return after his possible goodbye to St Andrews at the Hero World Challenge in December, but pulled out of the event after developing plantar fasciitis in his right foot.

Despite his recent setbacks, Woods made a first non-Major PGA Tour start since the 2020 Zozo Championo at Riviera Country Club last week, finishing in a share of 45th.

So, when will we see him again?

“Well, I am sure you will see me in some place,” Woods told CBS.  “Competitively, I don’t know.

“My goal each and every year from here going forward is to play in all the majors – I am not going to play too much more than that. My body and my leg and my back just won’t allow me to play much more than that anymore.

“So that was my goal last year and I was able to play three of the four and this year, I can hopefully play all four. That is going to be my schedule going forward because of all of the limitations I have.”

It seems almost unimaginable that Tiger can still compete despite his long list of injury problems over the years.

But technology, coupled with the fact that Tiger changed what it was to be a golfer have made it possible.

When a fresh-faced Woods first started winning on the PGA Tour he was a one off – he single handedly changed what it meant to physically play the game of golf, and revealed an exercise regime that left many golfers spitting out their beer.

“I pretty much lay in ice pretty much all night,” said Woods on his recovery after rounds.

“It’s not fun, very cold all the time. And then treatment, then getting muscles activated and go back and hop in the cold again. The ebb and flow of that, it’s hard. It’s hard mentally, it’s hard physically. It’s just one of those things, part of being an athlete,.

“Yes, we train, yes, we push our bodies, but it’s also what’s probably even more important is the recovery process. If you’re able to recover, you’re able to push it harder the next day.

“That’s one of the things that technology’s been fantastic. To see guys play later into their career. You saw what Tom Brady did, we see what LeBron James is doing. That is I think the understanding of training better and also recovery better and nutrition.

“You know, most of the guys, I remember growing up on Tour, they would go in the fitness trailer and hop on the treadmill with  beer and they would drink those while walking. It has definitely changed. You see all the guys grinding in there in the morning, lifting weight, throwing balls, moving sometimes some pretty good weight pre-round and then you have to lift post-round. When I first came out here it was just Vijay and myself, now it’s the entire Tour.”

Woods is almost certain to play the Masters Tournament in April, but it remains to be seen if he will tee it up before then.

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