Another Tiger Woods operation has gained the right to continue trying.
Tiger Woods has acquired the right to do what he wants to do in his life, even if he has to undergo a back surgery. Tiger Woods has played in just eight of the last 16 majors, including the 2024 British Open. (Harry Howe/Getty Images)Tiger Woods can do almost anything he wants in life. If he wanted to do TV, NBC and CBS would fight like cats to pay him millions to sit in the 18th hole TV tower.If he wanted to run the PGA Tour, his fellow players would pay commissioner Jay Monahan a buyout worth millions tomorrow and give Woods the title of “king of all golf” if he asked for it.
Keegan Bradley will become assistant captain immediately if he wants to captain the USA Ryder Cup team. In fact, Woods was asked to be captain next year, but he turned it down. The problem is: Woods doesn’t want to do any of those things. He wants to be a golfer. Maybe — just maybe — he’s accepted that he’ll never be Superman again, but he still hopes to remain competitive in the majors and occasionally on the PGA Tour.Story continues below adHe is not.
Woods announced last week that he has had another lower back surgery, six in a decade, not to mention surgery on his broken leg in 2008 and more leg surgery after a near-fatal car accident in 2021.He has played in eight of 16 major league games since that wreck. He has made the cut twice (his highest ranking was 47th at the 2022 Masters), missed the cut four times and withdrew twice.
He turns 49 in December, a difficult age for any player to remain competitive while waiting to reach the magical age of 50 and be able to play on the senior tour. Woods is the only player to win another Masters at the age of 43 after recovering from all the surgeries he had before 2019. Level. I think he will play well on the Senior Tour, where most events allow players to use wagons. If you believe in one minute that he is not playing on that tour, I have some Enron stock to sell you.
Remember, Jack Nicklaus insisted he would never play 50 on tour and then won eight.Story continues below adGolfers play golf. Tiger Woods is a golfer.Earlier this year, Colin Montgomerie, who is in the World Golf Hall of Fame, despite never having won a major, suggested that Woods should retire because he could no longer compete seriously. Woods countered that at least he had earned the right to continue playing in the majors – 15 of which he had won.
The reaction shows just how much Woods wants to come back again — at least. After all, it’s simple: while Wood wants to play, Woods should play. The PGA tour adopted one of the stupidest rules this year, saying that Woods (winning 82 times) and hopes to participate in any signature event, regardless of his identity. Seriously? Do you think any tournament director on Earth or any other planet would bar Woods from the event? Maybe if the Tour stopped scoring PR points and focused on solving the LIV problem, golf would be in a better position.What people like Montgomery often mention when they talk about Woods is legacy.
They suggest he’s damaging his legacy by limping around golf courses and missing cuts or barely making them.It is almost impossible for truly great athletes to walk away from what they’ve done — what they’ve been — for their whole lives. Nicklaus, playing his final British Open with a 65, easily made the cut but bogeyed the final hole at St. Andrews, where his friend and multiple major winner Tom Watson stood on the green and cried.
Watson won the British Open at the age of 59, 13 years after his last win on tour. I went with Arnold Palmer in 1994 when he was playing in his final round of the U.S. Open – he was 64 years old – and saw no dry eyes. “In most sports, I get booed because of the way I play,” he said. “How lucky have I been?”How lucky were those of us who were there to watch him that day?There are plenty of examples of athletes staying too long. When I was a kid, Willie Mays, my favorite baseball player, told me that he should never play for the New York Metropolitan team.
However, as a lifetime fans, no matter how he played, I am glad to see Mess’s uniform wearing the metropolis team. Is Johnny Unitas in San Diego? Is Tom Seaver in Boston? Michael Jordan in Washington? In 1991, at the age of 39, Jimmy Connors failed to win the U.S. Open, but he reached the semi-finals – and many people remember him for that, as he does for his eight majors as a Grand Slam champion. He also participated in the next U.S. Opened but lost in the second round.
None of these players’ legacies have been affected by their adventures over hills and mountains. They are – and always will be – the greats of history.The story continues below the adNothing can change Woods’ legacy. He has had all kinds of problems off the course, which is part of his legacy, but his 2000-01 2016 Tiger Slam is untouchable. So are the years from 1997 to 2008, when the only thing that slowed him down was a broken leg he suffered while winning the 2008 US Open. The end of a football player’s career is different because brain injuries are so serious and difficult to diagnose in the long term. But much-talked-about Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is similar to Woods in this: He has a future to decide. None of us can decide what to do next.In both cases, money was not a factor.
Woods likes the game. If he wants to continue the game, no matter what the level of the game is, it depends on him. If it is too painful to see his poor game, then they don’t have to watch. Woods said last week that he was looking forward to “getting into that rehab.” As someone who has been through a few rehabs, I find that hard to believe. But if he wants to do another round of rehab and another uncertain return, he should. He certainly has earned the right to do exactly what he wants with his life — whatever it may be.
