Of all the 54 players left competing for the 2023 Masters, there’s one player that needs these bad weather suspensions like a hole in the head. Tiger Woods. Saturday was a cold one, certainly no good for ailing joints.
Only Woods himself knows how long he can continue to play professional golf against the game’s elite. He’s been wounded before – plenty of times since winning the 2008 US Open with a wrecked lower half – and come back. Now, though, he just looks defeated – and tired. Very tired.
Watching the 47-year-old from just outside the ropes during the delayed third round on Saturday, his body language suggested that he’d rather be anywhere else than fighting it out near the back of the field. To be fair, the weather here in Georgia has been beyond horrid. Cold, too, not just wet and slippy. Combined with Augusta’s twisting, sloping fairways, it’s quite hazardous for a man who’s been through the wars.
To be clear, as far as we know, Woods isn’t suffering any fresh injury concerns, although at times it looked like he was, bad blisters at the very least. Even in his pomp, he’s never had the quickest walk – it’s always been more of a measured stride, a confident one. These days, the stride has shortened to such a degree that it’s become more of an awkward shuffle.
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He’s in pain – he admits such. “Constant pain”. It can’t be much fun, and even those who have ridiculed Woods for his past misdemeanors and questionable off course behaviour, must surely share some sympathy for the position that he now finds himself in.
And that position? He’s stuck. Does he carry on pushing himself through the pain barrier that seems to move up a notch with every season that passes, in the hope that he might get another ‘W’?
This is what he’s been used to his whole life. Since turning professional in 1996, he’s amassed a mind-boggling 82 PGA Tour victories. Is it the knowledge that just one more win would see him pass the great Sam Snead? Just one more.
It’s not Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 Major Championships that drives him on. Even the most ardent Woods fans gave up on this long ago, as did Woods, even after he managed to somehow pull off one of the most incredible feats in modern sport to win the Masters in 2019.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Prior to the start of this year’s Masters, Woods made it pretty clear why he’s still playing. He has “an appreciation of being able to play the…
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