Tiger Woods, in His ‘Buggy,’ Could Author Another Golf Miracle: Saving the Senior Circuit
The kinder, gentler Tiger Woods we’ve come to know made his competitive debut in early 2018, a year in which he piled up seven top-10 finishes and contended at the season’s final two majors before winning the Tour Championship that September. When he claimed his fifth Masters title the following April, the mythical Tiger Woods was conceived out of sheer public giddiness and the man’s irrepressible mental toughness. The Dude in the Red Shirt had reminded everyone that greatness doesn’t answer to the laws of time.
As if anyone could have forgotten, the outrageously hyped Tiger Woods (mid-1990s) had morphed into the better-than-anyone-imagined Tiger Woods (2000), which led to the indisputably dominant Tiger Woods until the domestically reckless Tiger Woods (’09) derailed his climb toward the 18-major summit of Mount Nicklaus. Knee and back issues (’14–17) reintroduced us to the physically incapable Tiger Woods, whose ’08 had been halted by injuries to his left leg immediately after his third U.S. Open triumph.
Fifteen years later, history has completed a full circle. A near-fatal car accident and some shoddy police work left us to contemplate the inexplicably negligent Tiger Woods in February 2021. His mangled right leg would sideline him for 13½ months, and in the 12½ months since, the cautiously hopeful Tiger Woods has been felled by the broken-down Tiger Woods, who underwent yet another surgery (ankle) last week.
“I’ve got three more years [before] I get the little buggy and be out there with Fred [Couples],” Woods said at this year's Masters, where he played a practice round with Couples.
Katie Goodale/USA TODAY Network
All of this background is essential when assessing Woods’s future, especially as it relates to the PGA Tour Champions—the brand-friendly shingle hung on the league for those 50 and older. Tiger’s eventual participation in senior golf seemed preposterous back in his prime, when it was safe to assume that his pursuit of a 19th major victory (and beyond) would last for as long as it took him to get there.
Reality intervened. The years came and went without an ounce of forgiveness. Woods is now 47, and though his senior eligibility doesn’t kick in until 2026, the topic has become a hot one since he embraced the possibility during a Masters press briefing earlier this month.
“I’ve got three more years [before] I get the little buggy and be out there with Fred [Couples],” Woods chirped, “but until then, no buggy.”
It validated a revelation made by Jack Nicklaus himself on a podcast hosted by Nick Faldo about a month earlier. Jack says he told Tiger he could petition the Tour for use of a cart now. Woods replied, “I’m not going to do that. When I get to the senior tour, I will.” For Tiger to reiterate his interest in the senior circuit while at Augusta National amounted to very big news—news that literally comes with a very long shelf life.
A lot can change in 32 months, just as a lot can remain largely unchanged. As outlined above, Woods’s career has undergone so many radical transformations over the last quarter-century—extreme highs, tortuous lows—that forecasting his long-term presence as a player is pure guesswork. Could he actually get healthier by 2026, or is the pain he currently deals with here to stay? Are his attempts to compete with the big boys now hurting his chances of competing against the old guys later?
Even if advances in medical science were to rehabilitate Woods’s body to its fullest extent, would he still be able to perform at a level remotely comparable to that of his dominant days? The car accident obviously has compromised Tiger’s physical capacities as a pro golfer, but that doesn’t mean he’d still be winning tournaments if it had never happened. The man has been through a lot, much of it self-inflicted. Perhaps all that idle time over the past eight years has forced Woods to realize how lucky he is, how much the game has meant to him—and broadened his perspective to the point where he’s happy just to go out there on his own two legs and give it everything his body will allow.
That hasn’t gotten him the results he’s been searching for, however, at which point even Tiger Woods’s psychological stamina comes into play. Will he ever become a regular on the PGA Tour Champions? Logic says such a scenario is unlikely, even with the buggy. Is he willing to accept a continuum of mediocrity against opponents he once beat merely by arriving at the first tee? That might end up becoming more painful than the arthritis in the ankle or the chronic soreness in the knee.
Given the multitude of hurdles ahead of him, Woods’s enthusiasm over the opportunity to play senior golf is a wonderful sign for the game as a whole. He is the only man on this or any other planet who can carry Geritol Ball back to the level of popularity it enjoyed in the 1990s. His participation would immediately command the attention of all four major networks, two of which currently don’t televise pro golf, which would pull the product much closer to America’s sporting mainstream, and more important, make a lot of golf fans happier.
Imagine a U.S. Senior Open with You Know Who in the thick of contention down the stretch, drawing a larger Sunday viewing audience than did the U.S. Open a few weeks earlier. One might foresee that as another circle of history worth completing.