In a career of impressive comebacks, Tiger Woods continues to work toward attempting his most remarkable return to golf yet.
Thirteen months after a car crash left him with devastating leg injuries, Woods said that he would travel to Augusta on Sunday to continue practicing before the start of the Masters, beginning on Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club.
“I will be heading up to Augusta today to continue my preparation and practice,” the 46-year-old wrote in a post on social media. “It will be a game-time decision on whether I compete.”
Woods, a 15-time Major champion with a reputation for willing himself to victory under the most challenging circumstances, has been undergoing rehabilitation on his surgically rebuilt right leg since his SUV tumbled off a Los Angeles-area road at high speed on February 23rd, 2021.
On Tuesday, Woods flew from his home in Florida to Augusta on his private jet with his 12-year-old son, Charlie, according to people who were familiar with Woods’s schedule but who were not authorised to discuss it publicly. He played an 18-hole practice round at Augusta National with Justin Thomas, Woods’s neighbour, and close friend.
The length of the course and its unforgiving elevation changes would be a daunting challenge for Woods. On Wednesday, Curtis Strange, the two-time US Open champion who is now a golf analyst for ESPN, called Augusta National “the hardest walk in golf”.
Another two-time winner of the US Open, Andy North, who is also an ESPN commentator, said he thought the British Open would be a likely place to return to competition for Woods because this year’s venue – St Andrews – is “flat and it’s an easy walk”.
“Augusta is the last place you would have thought he could possibly play,” North said.
But Woods, who won his first Masters title 25 years ago, in 1997, has carefully managed expectations – of the golf world and, perhaps, of his own – for a return to the tour at several points since the crash.
In mid-February, before the Genesis Invitational, Woods said in a news conference that he had worked mostly on chipping, putting, and short irons, but had not spent time “seriously” on his long game because of his right leg.