Tiger Woods takes a club from caddie, Lance Bennett, on the 18th green during the second round of the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 12, 2024 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Warren Little via Getty Images)
Nine golf tournaments. For world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler that is the amount of times he has been holding the trophy on Sunday evening since February of 2022. For the best player of all time it is the number of tournaments he has committed to over that same timespan.
After a dismal and painful-to-watch Masters weekend, one question was on top of mind: has the Big Cat taken his last breath?
The 2024 Masters marked the first time the public has watched Tiger Woods finish a full 72-hole tournament since the Hero World Challenge at the end of 2023. He has only played in three golf tournaments each season dating back to 2021, with four of them being missed cuts or a WD. With Father Time ticking away, Woods has not made any strides since his horrific car crash at the beginning of 2021.
A tow truck recovers the vehicle driven by Tiger Woods in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA on Feb. 23, 2021, after a rollover accident. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
For many professional athletes, coming back from the injuries that Woods has endured over the course of his career would be a miracle, let alone the addition of a severely broken right ankle and leg from the accident. He has had four major back surgeries and five knee surgeries, just to scratch the surface of setbacks.
But Tiger has always come back. Whether it has been from a nagging injury or public scrutiny from his personal life and decisions, he has continuously shown up and performed at the one thing that has been constant: golf.
This stretch of his career feels different.
Tiger Woods with his caddie, Lance Bennett, on the first green during the third round of Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 13, 2024 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Ben Jared for PGA TOUR via Getty Images)
Without many competitive rounds in the past few years, and The Masters being his first full tournament of the season, it was impressive enough that Tiger was able to make the cut for a record 24th consecutive time. The weather delay on Thursday caused Woods to finish his first round on Friday morning, and quickly turn around and play the full second round as well, totaling 23 holes on the day. This took a lot out of Woods, both mentally and physically, as he was walking around with a noticeable limp and was gingerly bending down to pick up his ball and read putts.
This proved to be true on Saturday as Tiger finished with an 82 at Augusta National, his highest round ever in 335 major championship rounds. In his post-round interview with the Golf Channel, Woods said that he “didn’t have a very good warmup session” and “kept that going all day long. I hit the ball in all the places I know I shouldn’t hit it and I missed a lot of putts.”
Tiger Woods was raised on the mentality to never quit. In the book “Tiger Woods”, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, they touch on a point that still rings true as we watch Woods relentlessly fighting to compete. “His body was begging him to stop competing, but he didn’t know how.”
Tiger Woods lines up a putt on the eighth green during the second round of the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 12, 2024 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Andrew Redington via Getty Images)
Earl Woods, Tiger’s father, used the code word “enough” in his training as a kid and Tiger could use that word whenever the adversity put upon him was too much to bear. Tiger never used the “E-word” still to this day.
Tiger still fears what life will be like when he does decide to step away from tour golf. His whole life has been based on the perfection of golf and winning.
When conditions are perfect and the body is “healthy”, Woods knows that he can still access the greatness that he once harnessed in the past. But the public has not seen that “killer” Tiger in almost five years. Everyone is itching to experience the feelings and emotions of the 2019 Masters performance and the question becomes: Will we ever see that Tiger Woods again?
