Playing in this year’s Masters? Maybe.
Captaining the 2027 U.S. Ryder Cup team at Adare Manor? Possibly.
Rolling out the new-look PGA Tour schedule in 2027? Perhaps.
Moving his own event at Riviera so that it forms part of the FedEx Cup playoffs in August? Conceivably.
Playing on the PGA Tour Champions this year now that he’s turned 50? It’s an option.
For all Tiger Woods’ on-course accomplishments in his now 30-year professional career – and a not too shabby amateur career that preceded it – he’s gained complete mastery of ‘the tease’ in his off-course appearances in front of a microphone.
It’s only 50 days until Augusta National’s showpiece event, and while Tiger did admit that he’s back making full swings at home, it’s not everyday. He’s provided plenty of evidence that his experience and guile can offset most of his physical limitations when he drives down Magnolia Lane, but each additional surgery and each additional recovery make each additional comeback tougher and more taxing on his ageing body.
Barring a competitive PGA Tour start in the meantime the “will he/won’t he” narrative surrounding his possible inclusion in the field will likely drag on well into Masters week so we can park that one for the time being.
As for playing on the PGA Tour Champions? Great if it happens, because anytime Tiger Woods plays golf, people watch, people write, people talk, people vlog…. But let’s face it, it’s still the Champions Tour.
What the PGA Tour looks like in coming years will be revealed in its own good time, and will receive mixed reactions. Certain players will be delighted, some apathetic, and others will be distraught, and these contrasting emotions will be mirrored across the media, the public, etc. So, until such time as a clearer picture presents itself, let’s leave that one too.
While I do believe that he’s hoping to tee it up at Augusta, and in the U.S. Senior Open if not the other senior major championships, and that the “moving parts” he keeps going back to are very much real in shaping the PGA Tour’s future, I don’t quite buy the uncertainty over Ryder Cup captaincy. Not this time, at least.
Everybody expected Woods to be at the U.S helm at Bethpage last year – the PGA of America included – and his 11th-hour withdrawal from consideration led to what can only be described as a calamity from a U.S. team point of view.
There aren’t many challenges Woods has backed down from in his life, and by the time the 2027 edition rolls around, it will be 34 years since the last American victory on European soil.
Who better than the game’s most iconic player to break that fast?
Barring winning another major – and let’s face it, there’s no guarantee he ever plays in another major, never mind wins one – and becoming the first player to complete the USGA Career Grand Slam if he could add the U.S. Senior Open to his U.S. Junior, U.S. Amateur, and U.S. Open titles, leading the U.S. team to a first away win since The Belfry in ’93 would likely be the pinnacle golfing achievement in his post-accident career.
He admitted that the PGA of America have already offered him the role, but claims he’s still weighing up whether his responsibilities on the PGA Tour board make ‘double-jobbing’ feasible.
I won’t claim to know the intricacies of his duties on the board, but I do know one thing for sure: if he passes on Adare Manor, there’s no guarantee he gets another shot at cementing his place in Ryder Cup lore.
Sure, if he decides he wants it at Hazeltine in ’29, Barcelona in ’31, or San Francisco in ’33, he’ll get it, but – despite splitting the last held on U.S. soil 4-4, you’re still expected to win at home, and the U.S. horror experiences on European soil may have already come to an end.
That’s before we even take his close association with JP McManus into consideration, which, a cynic might suggest, could’ve been a factor in him sidestepping Bethpage in the first place.
I believe that Woods is already locked in to lead the Stars and Stripes in 2027, but, as is his custom, he’s making us wait.
And really, you’d expect nothing less.
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