TIGER SURVIVES THE GUSTS AND MAKES THE CUT — OF COURSE, HE DID
People who hope Woods retires should realize his life needs visits to Augusta National — as he enjoys every April, despite severe pain — and won’t be leaving as long as he plays into the weekend
He can’t quit. He won’t try. His game isn’t about making consecutive cuts at the Masters, now a record 24, but the genetics in his blood since he was a toddler, when he drove a ball in front of host Mike Douglas on TV. Some have wanted him to go away, after his scandals, and some ask why he never faced reckless driving charges, which police didn’t chase when he nearly killed himself.
Home always will be on a golf course, even with 50 nearing. And Tiger Woods will stay as long as his memory lasts longer than the legs that still limp around the sweet hills of Augusta National. He remembers his first trip, as a collegian at Stanford, and how he purposely stayed in the Crow’s Nest, the appointed sleeping quarters above the clubhouse. “The next day I got a chance to see the golf course and what an amazing property this is,” he said. “I’m just an honorary member, but I love it.”
Fittingly, Woods is able to wrap his first green jacket in 1997 with his continuing presence in 2024. He reached the weekend Friday, finishing with a 1-over 144 when the cut line was 4-over. The days of winning major championships are over as he fills out the leaderboard, knowing Bryson DeChambeau is playing well and lifting course direction signs in the blustery wind, knowing Scottie Scheffler is the best in the world. But his time in Georgia won’t end with glories.
“It’s been a part of my life to have won here as my first major as a pro,” Woods said. “Hugging my dad, as you saw, and then a full circle to hug my son. It has meant a lot to my family. It has meant a lot to me. I always want to keep playing in this.”
His body aches every day. His bones are a human massacre. “Every shot that’s not in a tee box is a challenge,” he said. His 15th major title came here in 2019, which could have been the end. We’ve lost track of his surgeries at 11, the latest on his right ankle last April. His face is grizzled in pain. “Well, the ankle doesn't hurt anymore. It's fused. It's not going anywhere. It's other parts of my body that now have to take the brunt of it,” he said. “So, yeah, once he put the rods in the ankle, it's good to go. But the back, the knee, other parts of the body have to take the load of it, and just the endurance capability of walking a long time and being on my feet a long time.”
He came up with a plan that works, for now. He’ll play only in majors into July, meaning he’s 1-for-1 on cuts heading into the PGA Championship at Valhalla, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and the British Open at Royal Troon. Why? He wants to challenge the best, even if his health is restrictive on a surgically repaired right foot. “The body is OK,” he said, dealing with days of enormous physical therapy. He carries on.
“I love golf. I love to compete,” Woods said. “I think it's consistency, it's longevity, it's an understanding of how to play this golf course. There's a lot of knowledge that goes into understanding how to play it.”
That goes even for the bunker-video nutty winds, which demanded his patience and wherewithal for two days. He survived when Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson did not. Jon Rahm, the traitor, was wobbling too. “The wind was all over the place. It was one of the most tricky days that I’ve ever been a part of,” Woods said after finishing his first 13 holes Thursday. “It was hard to get a beat not only on what direction it was going, but the intensity, and it kept switching all over the place. It was a very difficult day.”
He survived the night, survived the last five holes of the first round Friday, then survived the mess. On the walkway afterward, he was greeted by thousands of fans, wishing him the best, some wondering if they’d see him again but most knowing he’ll be back for No. 25. He paused for a moment and said, “Been a long day, 23 holes. I’m tired. I’ve been out for a while, competing, grinding. I did really well out there. The wind is all over the place, on putts and chip shots, anything up in the air. It means I have a chance going into the weekend.”
A chance for what? “I’m here. I’m still in the ballgame with a great chance to win the tournament,” Woods said.
OK. And breaking the record? “It’s an amazing aura that Augusta National has,” he said. “I’ve been lucky enough to play in this event and come here since I was 19.”
He won’t win another green jacket, as he hoped earlier in the week, when he said, “If everything comes together, I think I can get one more. Do I need to describe that any more than that, or are we good?” No one was expecting a sixth, except him. He pointed out, again, that he never has thought about becoming an honorary starter like other legends. Tiger Woods thinks he can win majors. Let him.
“Well, I still think I can, so I don’t know when that day is or when that day comes, but I still think that I can,” he said. “I haven’t got to that point where I don’t think I can’t.’’
It’s fun to see him back, as his sport suffers massive viewership problems, much of it related to the gnarly division between the PGA Tour and renegade LIV Golf. “It’s certainly one possibility,” Masters chairman Fred Ridley said. “Certainly the fact that the best players in the world are not convening very often is not helpful. Whether or not there’s a direct causal effect, I don’t know. But I think that it would be a lot better if they were together more often.”
“People are just sick of the narrative in golf being about, you know, contracts on LIV, purses on the tour,” said the PGA Tour’s Peter Malnati, who won the Valspar Championship last month. “They want to see sport, they want to see people who are the best in the world at what they do, do it at a high level and celebrate that, celebrate the athleticism, celebrate the achievement.”
He remembers watching Michael Jordan win NBA titles. “I didn’t care one iota what Jordan’s contract was,” Malnati said. “I didn’t care one iota what the winner’s check at that U.S. Open was. No kid dreamed when they were watching Jordan dreamed of having his salary. They didn’t care about that. They dreamed of being in that moment, hitting that shot. I think that’s what our fans care about, too, and that’s what they want to see.” Jordan is Woods, Woods is Jordan.
Three of golf’s greats concur. “The best outcome is when the best players play against each other all the time," said Jack Nicklaus, who knows it isn’t happening.
“You've got to get together and come to a solution. If you cannot — it's not good,” Gary Player said. “The public doesn't like it and we as professionals don't like it.”
“I hope the players say, ‘You know, we have to do something,’ ’’ Tom Watson said. “We have to do something.”
Which explains why anyone who wants Tiger Woods to retire doesn’t understand the woes of golf. We need to see him. We want to see him make cuts. We don’t care if he “eliminated sex,” as a friend claimed.
Each April, he appears at Augusta. He has been doing that since 1995, before O.J. Simpson was acquitted, when Bill Clinton was President of the United States. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have followed. Tiger?
White pants, brown shirt, white shoes, white hat — all part of his new brand.
See you Saturday, as always.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.