Tiger Woods may not be in the field to compete at the Hero World Challenge, but the tournament host is there in a promotional capacity and addressed the assembled media alongside Dr. Pawan Munjal, the Executive Chairman of Hero MotoCorp.
Along with the news that Hero will continue to sponsor the event through 2030, Woods’ own health and injury status were high on the agenda for discussion and the 15-time major winner admitted that he’s not rushing the process as he continues to recover from back surgery.
“I’m not tournament sharp yet, no,” he explained. “I’m still not there. These are 20 of the best players in the world and I’m not sharp enough to compete against them at this level. So when I’m ready to compete and play at this level, then I will.”
Speaking at last year’s event where he was able to tee it up, Woods had expressed hopes to play a tournament a month in 2024 but entered just five tournaments – the four majors and the Genesis Invitational – withdrawing from Riviera through illness and making the cut at the Masters before missing out on the weekend at the US PGA Championship, US Open and Open Championship.
“Well, I didn’t think my back was going to go like it did this year,” he explained when asked about his hopes for 2025. It was quite painful throughout the end of the year and hence I had another procedure done to it to alleviate the pain I had going down my leg.
“So whether my commitment going forward is once a month, yeah, I could say that all over again, but I truly don’t know. I’m just trying to rehab and still get stronger and better and feel better, really give myself the best chance I can going into next year.
“This year was kind of — I had to toss it away and I wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be and I didn’t play as much as I needed to going into the major championships and I didn’t play well at them. Hopefully next year will be better, I’ll be physically stronger and better. I know the procedure helped and hopefully that I can then build upon that.”
Woods knows that ever playing something approaching a full schedule is not possible, but he remains determined to return to Tour action and to test himself against the top players in the modern game.
“The fire still burns to compete. The difference is the recovery of the body to do it is not what it used to be. I still love doing it, I love competing, I love competing in anything whether we’re playing cards or we’re playing golf. No matter what it is, I love competing. That’s never going to leave,” he said.
“But as far as the recovery process of going out there and doing it again and again and again and doing it consistently at a high level, I can’t, for some reason the body just won’t recover like it used to. That’s part of age and part of an athlete’s journey.”
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