Tiger Woods is not enjoying on this week’s Hero World Problem, an unofficial match he hosts within the Bahamas.
However the 15-time main champion will nonetheless be concerned within the occasion, and he met with the media Tuesday throughout a pre-tournament information convention. It was the primary time Woods had met with reporters since he missed the minimize on the Open Championship at Royal Troon in Scotland in July.
Woods addressed a lot of matters, together with his well being, his potential enjoying schedule for 2025, golfers being compensated to compete within the upcoming Ryder Cup and the PGA Tour’s ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund.
Tiger’s well being
Woods is not a part of the 20-man discipline that may compete this week at Albany golf membership. Final 12 months, Woods returned from a layoff of greater than seven months to complete 18th at even par, 20 strokes behind winner Scottie Scheffler.
In 2023, Tiger was getting back from surgical procedure to handle post-traumatic arthritis in his proper foot and ankle, which was attributable to accidents he sustained in a automobile wreck in February 2021.
This time, he is recovering from microdecompression surgical procedure in September to alleviate ache from nerve impingement in his decrease again.
“I am not bodily prepared but to compete at this degree,” Woods stated. “The occasions I’ve come again right here, I used to be prepared to begin competing and enjoying once more. Sadly, not this time. I nonetheless must maintain coaching to offer myself the very best probability going into subsequent 12 months and the occasions forward.”
Woods, 48, did not point out Tuesday when he deliberate to return to aggressive play, saying, “I actually do not know.”
Up to now, he competed together with his son, Charlie, within the PNC Championship, which is able to happen in Orlando, Florida, in two weeks. In that occasion, Tiger would be capable of use a cart.
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In any other case, golf followers may not see Woods play once more till the Genesis Invitational, which he hosts Feb. 13-16 at Riviera Nation Membership outdoors Los Angeles, or the Masters, the primary main of the season, April 10-13 at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership.
Woods stated his again situation precipitated ache in his leg that turned progressively worse this previous season. He made solely 5 begins on tour in 2024. He missed three cuts and withdrew from the Genesis Invitational due to sickness.
“I needed to toss [the season] away, and I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be and I did not play as a lot as I wanted to going into the key championships, and I did not play nicely at them,” Woods stated. “Hopefully, subsequent 12 months will probably be higher. I will be bodily stronger and higher. I do know the process helped, and hopefully that I can then construct upon that.”
Provided that Woods has undergone myriad again surgical procedures up to now, he was conscious of the lengthy restoration he confronted this time.
“I do know what to anticipate popping out of it,” Woods stated. “The aid I had, I did not have a spasm, I did not have the nerve ache, in order that was improbable. However I additionally understood that I nonetheless have a protracted highway forward of me of rehab and restoration. I want I hadn’t identified this, however I do know it very nicely and I do know the method, I understand how lengthy it will take.
“We’ll proceed doing all of the fitness center work and proceed doing all of the protocols, and ultimately it’s going to result in one thing the place I can compete once more.”
PGA Tour’s potential take care of the Public Funding Fund
It has been practically a 12 months because the PGA Tour’s framework settlement with the DP World Tour and the PIF expired on Dec. 31, 2023.
There have been indicators of progress in current months, together with a well-publicized assembly between the perimeters in New York in September, and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan enjoying golf with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship pro-am in early October.
As a member of the PGA Tour’s coverage board and vice chair of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, Woods has been concerned in negotiations with the PIF a couple of potential funding of greater than $1 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s for-profit wing.
On Tuesday, Woods indicated {that a} deal hasn’t been reached but, admitting that “all of us who’ve been part of this course of would have thought it might have occurred faster than this.”
Woods acknowledged that any settlement between the perimeters will probably be closely scrutinized by the U.S. Division of Justice’s Antitrust Division. It could doubtless be reviewed by antitrust regulators in Europe as nicely.
“Even when we had gotten a deal executed by now, it is nonetheless within the DOJ’s palms, however we want we might have had one thing extra concrete and additional alongside than we’re proper now,” Woods stated. “However issues are very fluid, we’re nonetheless working via it, it is taking place each day. From a coverage board standpoint or from an Enterprise standpoint, issues are shifting and so they’re constructive. However sure, undoubtedly shifting.”
Though the perimeters appear to be aligned on many points, sources advised ESPN on Tuesday that staff golf’s place sooner or later ecosystem of the game and precisely how LIV golfers will return to the PGA Tour stay sticking factors.
Final week, Bloomberg reported that the PIF had separate negotiations with the DP World Tour about an alliance that will give LIV Golf gamers entry to DP World Tour occasions. In change, the PIF would make a monetary funding within the European tour.
“This has been a really troublesome time within the recreation of golf,” Woods stated. “I believe that a number of it has been distractions on the great thing about the sport of golf, and clearly we’re attempting to unify that and provides the followers the very best expertise we all know we may give them.”
In the identical information convention Tuesday, Pawan Munjal, CEO of Hero MotoCorp, which sponsors Woods’ match within the Bahamas, expressed frustration that the perimeters have not but struck a deal.
“Very merely put, the sport just isn’t benefiting, the gamers aren’t benefiting,” Munjal stated. “Perhaps some on tour. What has to occur is everybody will get again collectively and the sport strikes on, the gamers transfer on, the sponsors transfer on. There may be confusion for the sponsors as nicely proper now, what to do, the place to go, how to take a look at the long run. The long run is unsure, which isn’t a great factor.”
Ryder Cup compensation
Final month, the Telegraph of London reported that U.S. golfers could be paid $400,000 to compete within the Ryder Cup at Bethpage State Park in New York in September 2025.
The PGA of America presently offers every American golfer $200,000 to distribute to the charity of their selection. The Telegraph did not say whether or not the $400,000 stipend would go to the gamers or charity.
Woods was concerned in comparable discussions with the PGA of America earlier than the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Nation Membership in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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Woods stated he would not have an issue if golfers have been paid for competing within the Ryder Cup, so long as the cash went to charity.
“We did not wish to receives a commission [in 1999], we wished to offer extra money to charity, and the media turned it round towards us and stated we wish to receives a commission,” Woods stated. “No, the Ryder Cup itself makes a lot cash, why cannot we allocate it to numerous charities? And what’s incorrect with every participant, 12 gamers getting 1,000,000 {dollars} and the power to divvy out to superb charities that they are concerned in that they will help out?
“It is their hometowns, the place they’re from, all of the completely different junior golf associations or endeavors that the members are concerned in. It is by no means actually been about getting paid; it is how can we allocate funds to assist our sport or assist issues that we consider in again residence, as a result of it is so exhausting to get onto that staff, there’s solely 12 guys. What’s incorrect with having the ability to allocate extra funds?”
After the Telegraph report, European captain Luke Donald consulted lots of his staff’s golfers about whether or not they need to be paid. Rory McIlroy stated the consensus was to donate the cash again to the DP World Tour.
“It is one week the place you play for greater than your self,” Donald advised the Telegraph. “It is … not about cash or factors, it is about coming collectively as a staff and the followers feed off that — it is all ardour. I do not assume we must always ever receives a commission.”
Whatever the European staff’s emotions towards compensation, Woods stated he hoped American golfers would get $5 million every and donate it to charity.
“That is high quality, that is their proper to say that,” Woods stated. “I simply assume that the occasion is so large that I believe that we may give a lot cash to completely different charities, and I’ve stated that since ’99 once we had the Brookline negotiations. If the Europeans wish to pay to be within the Ryder Cup, that is their determination to do this, that is their staff. I do know when it is on European soil that it subsidizes most of their tour, so it’s a large occasion for the European Tour, and in the event that they wish to pay to play in it, so be it.”
