Tiger Woods Says He Intends to Play the Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Approaching 14 months because the automobile wreck that led medical doctors to weigh a leg amputation, Tiger Woods mentioned Tuesday that he meant to play within the Masters Event.

Woods, who has received the occasion at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership 5 instances, had signaled in latest days that he would maybe be a part of the sphere within the match, which is able to start on Thursday. However his announcement, throughout a information convention at Augusta on Tuesday morning, represented essentially the most definitive public step towards a return to the pains of competitors on his sport’s most spectacular, tradition-bound levels.

“As of proper now, I really feel like I’m going to play,” Woods, 46, mentioned on Tuesday. Requested whether or not he believed that he may win his sixth inexperienced jacket at Augusta on Sunday, Woods replied, “I do.”

“I really like competing, and I really feel like if I can nonetheless compete on the highest stage, I’m going to,” mentioned Woods, who later added that he wouldn’t “present as much as an occasion except I feel I can win it.”

Woods mentioned he had no misgivings about his capability to play the sport. The concern, he mentioned, was the topographical perils of Augusta and the calls for of the 72-hole match: “Strolling is the onerous half.”

Woods is scheduled to start the primary spherical at midmorning on Thursday, when he’s anticipated to play in a gaggle with Louis Oosthuizen, who completed second on the Masters in 2012 however has by no means received at Augusta, and Joaquin Niemann, who tied for fortieth ultimately 12 months’s match.

Woods, who mentioned he would navigate 9 holes on Wednesday earlier than the match’s formal begin the following day, performed follow rounds on Sunday and Monday at Augusta Nationwide, the second with Fred {Couples} and Justin Thomas. Woods was limping extra noticeably on Monday than on Sunday. He walked up the various hills slowly along with his gait barely extra inhibited.

{Couples}, a longtime pal and a frequent practice-round companion of Woods’s for greater than a decade, mentioned that strolling 72 holes of hilly terrain throughout a four-round match would most certainly current the largest problem to Woods.

“It’s in regards to the strolling,” {Couples} mentioned. “It’s brutal to stroll, and to go try this after what he’s gone by — no matter it was, 14 months in the past — and to be taking part in at present?

“You possibly can at all times be in ache, proper. He’s form of a tricky man. He’s by no means going to let you recognize he’s in ache.”

Total, {Couples} was impressed with how Woods performed.

“He regarded phenomenal,” {Couples} mentioned. “He drove it actually, very well, like a machine. His irons have been good. He’s Tiger Woods, so after all, he is aware of methods to putt. He’s simply unreal. If he can not overdo it. If he simply doesn’t get too amped up, which is simpler mentioned than executed.

“But when he can stroll round right here in 72 holes, he’ll contend. He’s too good.”

Woods has been present process arduous rehabilitation on his surgically rebuilt proper leg since his sport-utility car tumbled off a Los Angeles-area boulevard at a excessive velocity on Feb. 23, 2021. He sustained open fractures, in a number of locations, of the tibia and the fibula in his proper leg. He spent a month within the hospital, and medical doctors had thought-about the likelihood that his leg might need to be amputated.

However Woods, who received his first Masters title 25 years in the past, in 1997, has fastidiously managed expectations — of the golf world and, maybe, of his personal — for a return to the PGA Tour at a number of factors because the crash.

“I’m nonetheless engaged on the strolling half,” Woods mentioned in mid-February, in his first public look because the crash. “My foot was a bit tousled there a few 12 months in the past, so the strolling half is one thing that I’m nonetheless engaged on, engaged on power and improvement in that. It takes time.”

Woods’s final look in a PGA Tour sanctioned occasion was on the 2020 Masters, which was performed in November quite than April due to the pandemic. At that occasion, Woods struggled and completed tied for thirty eighth. However it was the 2019 Masters, his first main match victory in 11 years, that will make any problem — even competing on this 12 months’s Masters — appear doable.

After present process a number of again and knee surgical procedures, Woods was not thought-about a critical contender that 12 months, but by the ultimate spherical he performed his finest golf, birdieing three of the ultimate six holes to win his fifth Masters title.