TIGER WOODS HAS A BIGGER GAME NOW: SAVE GOLF FROM ITS SLAUGHTERERS

He returned to shoot 75 in the Bahamas, but much more importantly, he's widely in play on the PGA Tour’s policy board and won’t be allowing more of the LIV Golf debris that almost wrecked the sport

     The ball tiptoed into the hole, leaving us to see a smirk on his face before a grin in the Bahamas. For a moment, we didn’t focus on his heavier belly, the bulk in his upper chest, more baggage in his cheeks and neck. Tiger Woods turns 48 in a few weeks. If his body was revealing the age, it might be 65.

     He’s not going to win another major championship, though his Thursday gimme traveled 49 feet and he answers such questions with routine denial. “Absolutely,” he said despite fusion surgery on his right ankle, nearly three years since defying death in a SUV crash. He has returned to the game because, one, he loves it and, two, he doesn’t appreciate people suggesting he become a Ryder Cup captain, an analyst, a ceremonial player, a man who isn’t sued by a live-in girlfriend and the master of a tech-infused golf league whose white dome crashed in Florida.

     Furthermore, Woods is back because a distorted, largely unwatchable sport needs him. In June, while recovering from one of his endless medical procedures, he was as shocked as all of us about secret talks between PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The war between the Tour and LIV Golf suddenly was over, with PIF investing more than $1 billion into a new enterprise controlled by the Tour. The harsh scrutiny went beyond the deserters who joined LIV and left the player ranks in bedlam. What about layers of government inquiry, wondering why a piece of American sports went beyond financial help in the U.S. and required the input of the, um, killer Saudis?

     As a great who turned down more than $800 million to join LIV, Woods was prepared to puke on the money. He demanded his way onto the tour’s board of directors in August and told Monahan, more or less, to get out of his way. Nothing has happened since, with a so-called deadline approaching Dec. 31. Woods has made it known nothing will happen until he approves any resolution.

     Don’t worry how he’s playing at the Hero World Challenge, where he held up and finished his first 18 holes at 75, stepping through the grass and sand more than walking after almost eight months of quiet life and recent rehab. The real issue is bigger than ever: Woods has arrived to save golf from its slaughterers.

     “I was frustrated with the fact that the players were never involved,” Woods said. “This is our tour, and we were all taken back by it. It happened so quickly without any of our involvement. No one knew. That can't happen again, not with the player directors having the role that we have.

     “It was just thrown out there. I was very surprised the process was what it was. We were very frustrated with what happened and we took steps going forward to ensure that we were not going to be left out of the process like we were. So part of that process was putting me on the board and accepting that position.”

     And now? There is no guarantee the PGA Tour and LIV Golf continue to play separately. If the Saudis don’t like it, Woods will lead the brigade into battle. His life has changed dramatically, so many times, but he is a tried-and-true Tour sympathizer who grew up in that environment. “We have multiple options. There are other options out there,” he said. “I would have to say there's a lot of moving parts on how we're going to play. Whether it's here on the PGA Tour or it's merging or team golf … there's a lot of different aspects that are being thrown out there all at once, and we are trying to figure all that out and what is the best solution for all parties and best solution for all the players that are involved.”

     So much for the triad of Monahan teaming with two policy-board directors, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne, to sneak the agreement past Woods. The commissioner is scheduled to meet next week with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PIF governor, and said Wednesday night in New York that he’s in charge of the potential breakthrough. “We're having conversations with multiple parties," Monahan said. “The deadline for our conversations with PIF, as you know, is a firm target. I'll be with Yasir, and we continue to advance our conversations. And I think it's well-known that there's a large number of other interested parties that we're also pushing to think about.”

     They would include possible members who should have been involved all along, including the Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool P.C. of the Premier League and other teams. To cut deals with the Saudis alone should have ended Monahan’s reign. Knowing Woods is on the board, the future still might end up with a new commissioner. Monahan, who took a leave of absence with mental health issues shortly after the first agreement was cut, still acknowledges he’s in recovery after returning to his gig in mid-July.

     “I knew the perception was that I was running away from a fight, and that was excruciating. That hurt me to my core,” Monahan said. “You'll hear people talk a lot about, ‘I focus on the things I can control.’ I wasn't doing a good job of that. I was confusing that. I am fully focused on the things I control. And so you have to realize that it's part of life, it's part of who I am, it's my truth. And I am a work in progress. And I'm just every single day trying to improve. I realized I had to get myself right, but I also had a responsibility to come back as the strongest possible person and leader with the tools to deal with what we're going to be facing.”

     Well, with respect to the commissioner, how about Tiger Woods running golf? Sounds much better than any result with Monahan and Greg Norman.

     For now, he’s trying to get through 72 holes. His hopes include playing once a month in 2024, starting with his Genesis Invitational at Riviera in Los Angeles, followed by one tournament in March and major events in April, May, June and July. “I don’t have any of the ankle pain that I had with the hardware that’s been placed in my foot. That’s all gone,” Woods said. “The other parts of my body — my knee hurts, my back. The forces go somewhere else. Just like when I had my back fused, the forces have to go somewhere. So it’s up the chain.”

     Can he pull it off? “This week is a big step in that direction,” he said. The usual question is whether he can survive six events from February through July. Woods doesn’t want to make the cut at the Masters and withdraw, as he did this year.

     “Heh, heh, I hit a lot of shots,” he said after finishing his first round in Nassau. “I was rusty. I didn’t have my feels. I didn’t finish the round the way I wanted. Kind of went sideways at the end.”

     His body? “I’m a little sore. That’s for sure,” he said. “I have some stuff to do tonight. Hopefully, I’ll post a better number. I wanted to compete. I wanted to play. I felt like I was ready to compete and play, and I hit it solid most of the day. I just didn’t mentally do the things I normally would do — and I need to do.”

     We aren’t looking for career victory No. 83. We’re looking for his trajectory as a leader of men. That’s how his father, Earl, hailed him. The opportunity is upon him.

###

     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.