There were plenty of good vibes emanating from Tiger Woods’ Tuesday reappearance in the Bahamas, his annual State of the Tiger press conference ahead of this week’s Hero World Challenge. Woods isn’t playing this year but he seemed at peace with that, instead reprising his role as smiley tournament host. These days, Woods is largely congenial with the press and vice-versa, each owing a better understanding of what to expect from the other. As expected, the day’s back-and-forth failed to unearth any five-alarm breaking news. In some ways that was the biggest takeaway. But one line was hard to hear without wincing.
Woods was asked about a prediction he’d made a year ago in this same chair, when he’d declared his intentions to play once per month in 2024. It seemed ambitious but exciting at the time, a dose of optimism from the greatest player of his generation. But it didn’t pan out that way. Woods’ 2024 began with a mysterious WD at the Genesis Invitational, it peaked with yet another made cut at the Masters and then came disappointing MCs at the PGA, U.S. Open and Open Championship. We didn’t hear much from him after that, just news of another successful back surgery — his sixth. So what happened?
“Well, I didn’t think my back was going to go like it did this year,” Woods said.
He described the pain that progressed throughout the season, the way it radiated down his leg, and how it stopped responding to treatment and recovery. He said he could commit to one tournament per month again, but he paused.
“I truly don’t know.”
Now comes the hard part. Prep mode for 2025, a year that promises the TGL and some unknown number of stroke-play golf tournaments. But 2024?
“This year was kind of — I had to toss it away,” he said. “I wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be. 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 I can build upon that.”
I had to toss it away. It’s painful to witness pain in another human being. It’s even harder to see what pain does to an athlete — how the body can betray the mind and the spirit. It’s painful to watch Woods in particular, who has pushed his body, mind and spirit past the limit for decades, and is now fighting Father Time for good measure.
Woods’ words were painful too in the context of his other work as a central figure in the PGA Tour’s geopolitical negotiations — his lost year on the course felt emblematic of a lost year across the fragmented landscape of professional golf, which remains in frustrating limbo.
This December marks the first anniversary of the original deal deadline between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund. It seems like we’ll breeze past that unfortunate one-year mark without an agreement; Woods’ latest update on that front was a mix between some cautious optimism (“definitely moving”) and one giant shrug (“Even if we had gotten a deal done by now, it’s still in the DOJ’s hands, but we wish we would have had something more concrete”).
Across the sport, it was hardly a lost year — think Scottie Scheffler’s stretch of dominance, Xander Schauffele’s validation, Bryson DeChambeau’s U.S. Open heroics. But within the sport, “high-level negotiations” between the interested parties are beginning to feel like intransigence. We’ve seen no progress on a satisfying top-tour resolution, inched no closer to peace or harmony, and we’ve reached December, again, staring down an offseason of LIV signing rumors and merger non-update eye-rolls.
At this week’s Hero, we might not find comfort. But through Woods, we might at least find context. This year marks the 25th edition of the World Challenge, an event Woods first hosted in 1999 to benefit his foundation. Woods turns 49 later this month, which means he’s hosted this event for more than half his life.
Mostly that seems surreal. Tiger turned 24 in his first year as tournament host, and it’s tough to imagine Ludvig Aberg (who turned 25 last month) or Akshay Bhatia (who turns 23 next month) hosting an invitational or getting the world’s best pros to turn up. But the 25th anniversary of this event is also a reminder that the issues facing pro golf in 2024 haven’t changed much from 1999.
Woods was already the biggest player in golf then. He entered the 1999 World Challenge off four PGA Tour victories in a row, he’d kick off 2000 with two more and, later that year, he’d claim the first three legs of the Tiger Slam. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses; Woods and agent Mark Steinberg had their issues with the operations of the PGA Tour. They didn’t appreciate the hefty rights fee the Tour charged their tournament, which quadrupled from 1999 to 2000. Nor did they approve of the ads used by tournament sponsors featuring Woods’ likeness. (Mercedes plastered Woods’ face on tournament advertising while Buick paid Woods directly for the same privilege.) Tiger and commissioner Tim Finchem had a frosty relationship, and there was even some concern Woods could look to play his golf elsewhere.
“The players and the PGA Tour have been bucking heads on a lot of issues,” Woods said in 2000. “The public has no idea we do it, but we do it all the time.” Asked about speculation that he could leave the PGA Tour, the New York Times described his reaction this way: “Woods hummed, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.”
His father Earl fueled the speculation.
“He can take his game to Europe, Africa, Asia or wherever he wants,” Earl told the Associated Press, “and the world will follow.”
Unlike today, when the tangible threat of departure can beam its advertising on the PGA Tour website, the conversation then was likely just chatter and leverage. Woods and the PGA Tour were better in shared company. But Woods’ displeasure was a reminder of the perennial push-pull between players and institutions — a push-pull echoed by LIV’s arrival, by Policy Board negotiations, by changing field sizes and Tour sizes and equity payments and media rights. And by the discourse around players being paid to play in the Ryder Cup, an issue that resurfaced again at Tiger’s presser on Tuesday.
“Going back to my playing days, we had the same conversation back in ’99 and we didn’t want to get paid, we wanted to give more money to charity, and the media turned it around against us and said we want to get paid,” Woods recalled on Tuesday. “The Ryder Cup itself makes so much money, why can’t we allocate it to various charities? And what’s wrong with each player, 12 players getting a million dollars and the ability to divvy out to amazing charities that they’re involved in that they can help out?”
A final reference to 1999 came in reference to Woods’ swing changes at the time, and here he made an effort to correct the record. As time has gone by Earl has gotten painted as Woods’ swing coach, but after his early golf days that was never really the case.
“My father turned over all the keys to the golf swing, that wasn’t his thing,” Woods said. “My father understood more the mental side of it from his operational days in Special Forces and the mindset that it took to do what he had to do, but as far as golf mechanics, no.”
In 1999, Woods underwent a controversial swing change under the watchful eye of Butch Harmon. First things got worse, and then they got much, much better.
“We went to work on slowly integrating pieces of the golf swing and it took the better part of a year and a half or so to where it got to where I thought it was where I would like it to be. I had a good run in ’99, 2000, 2001,” Woods said in an understated, satisfied sort of way.
The players battled the tour then, as now. They fought for more money, more control, a bigger piece of the pie. They threatened to look elsewhere. Largely they stayed. They battled tough fields and their own swings, and they tweaked both and tried to make ’em better. At the time, Woods did all of those things better than nearly all of his peers. They’ve nearly all gotten tougher with time.
On Tuesday, Woods didn’t just look back, though. This is the 10th anniversary of Hero’s sponsorship of the World Challenge, and while Hero’s executive chairman Dr. Pawan Munjal admitted uncertainty — “There is confusion for the sponsors as well right now, what to do, where to go, how to look at the future,” — he also announced a sponsorship extension through 2030. Woods will turn 55 that December. It’s tough to predict the status of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour or their potential intersection. And it’s tough to know whether Woods will have stepped away from competitive golf altogether by that point — or if he’ll be teeing it up as a sponsor invite that week having made the cut at the Masters and dominated in a limited schedule on the PGA Tour Champions.
Woods talked about the athlete’s journey and about the roles of recovery, patience, and frustration. His body doesn’t recover like it used to, he said. Still, he remembers and he hopes. Which brings us to his other line, uttered by athletes and sports fans as long as there have been seasons.
Hopefully next year will be better.
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