Tiger Woods Looked Worse Than Ever Before His Withdrawal From This Masters
AUGUSTA, Ga.—The video that surfaced of Tiger Woods standing in the pouring rain Saturday afternoon at Augusta National was sad enough. Who wants to see anyone in such misery at one of the game’s most hallowed places?
But the steps he then took and the obvious discomfort he was in suggested it was more than the bad weather that was bothering Woods.
We’ve become accustomed to seeing him move about with a limp, one that gets more pronounced as the day goes on, especially on the hilly terrain of one of the most strenuous walks in golf.
But this was different. Worse than we’ve seen. Painful to watch. It appeared Woods could barely get to his bag, and mercifully a few moments later the horn sounded and play was suspended during the third round.
Woods was on the 17th fairway after having made back-to-back double bogeys for the first time in his Masters career. His 5 at the par-3 16th was his worst score there in 96 competitive rounds. It’s not official, but it is quite unlikely Woods ever hit a ball in the water there and played from the drop zone.
“He was limping bad,” said Thomas Pieters, who along with Sungjae Im was grouped with Woods during the third round. “He looked fine at the start but then it progressively got worse. It looked painful when I saw him walking from the No. 15 to 16 tee box. I told my caddie, ‘He’s not making it.’ Obviously he’s not getting to his left side. The shot he hit on 16, he’s hanging back and the clubface takes over.”
It seemed quite possible Woods might withdraw. He was facing some 28 holes of golf Sunday in temperatures that started in the 40s. Perhaps he made up his mind before going to sleep or maybe he wanted to wait and see how he felt in the morning. Either could be true, and it’s possible Woods woke up early to go through his usual lengthy routine of getting ready for a round, one that includes all manner of therapy and stretching and who knows what else to get a bad back and mangled leg in any kind of shape to play, let alone compete.
The word came early from Augusta National and Tiger tweeted shortly thereafter that he was withdrawing due to a recurrence of plantar fasciitis, the injury that knocked him out of the Hero World Challenge in December and kept him from ramping up his game for at least a month or more after that.
Woods previously said the plantar diagnosis was directly related to the issues he has with his right foot as a result of a February 2021 car crash. He’s had numerous surgeries on the right leg, ankle and foot.
“Mobility is not where I would like it," Woods said earlier in the week. “But as I sit here, I’m very lucky to have this leg; it’s mine. Yes, it has been altered and there’s some hardware in there, but it’s still mine. It is tough and will always be tough. The ability and endurance of why my leg will do going forward will never be the same. I understand that.
“That’s why I can’t prepare and play as many tournaments as I like, but that’s my future and that’s O.K. I’m O.K. with that."
When asked how much hardware is “in there," Woods said: “A lot."
Throw in the poor weather conditions and it gets worse. Woods needs heat and lots of it. Think of the 2018 PGA Championship, where he finished second to Brooks Koepka. The weather was stifling. And yet it was perfect for Woods. He’d gladly sweat through a few golf shirts over having to deal with the effects cold weather has on his back, foot and ankle.
Jason Day is a longtime Woods friend who saw him last Sunday after they both arrived. Day marveled at the sound as Woods struck practice shots beside him.
“It’s just a distinct sound that a lot of guys don’t have, I mean, a majority of guys don’t have,” Day said. “He’s got a different sound to his shot. It was good to see him play well and make the cut in those conditions, especially the all-time record of consecutive cuts. That’s unbelievable, another thing he has to put on the trophy cabinet I’m sure.
“Obviously it’s difficult to hear he pulled out because of injury … He looked like he was laboring pretty hard yesterday. It was obviously difficult to watch because he had to come back out and then play through all that yesterday morning, and then he had to take a little bit of a break and come back out and play again. It’s disappointing, but that’s just kind of where we’re at with how his body is right now.”
And that leads to considerable doubt about his immediate future. Woods has said several times he wants to play all four majors, but the PGA Championship would seem to be in doubt next month. That’s still five weeks away, but the plantar fasciitis complicates matters.
If he needs a month or more to recover, it leaves little time to ramp up for another tournament appearance. And does he want to do that at a place like Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., where the weather has the potential to be bad again?
We won’t know that answer for a while.