After leaving St. Andrews, a golf course on the PGA tour, Tiger Woods was asked if he had planned to compete this year. Woods left St. Andrews saying, “I have nothing, nothing planned. Zero. Maybe something next year. I don’t know. But nothing in the near future. This is it. I was just hoping to play this one event this year.” This left fans and analysts asking, “Could this be the end of his storied career?”
Tiger Woods is an all-time great golfer. He burst onto the professional golf scene in 1996 at 20 years old. On April 13, 1997, he won his first major, the Masters, in record-breaking fashion and became the tournament’s youngest winner at age 21. Two months later, he set the record for the fastest player to reach the No. 1 player in the world status. Woods has 15 major championship victories in his professional career, second only to Jack Nicklaus who holds the record with 18. Woods has also gained 81 career PGA Tour wins, which is also the second-most in golf history. His success has been quite a long run but due to various reasons and circumstances, he’s taken long periods off from the golf scene.
Like most pro athletes, injuries were always an issue for Woods, even in the early part of his career. In 2007, Woods tore his ACL, which he didn’t have surgery on until 2008; a few months later, in December while jogging Woods ruptured his Achilles. The knee and Achilles injuries continued to bother him through 2011. 2014 was a rough stretch for Woods after back spasms forced him out of multiple tournaments including the Masters.
This followed him through 2015 and the beginning of 2016. In 2017, he had a successful back surgery that kept him healthy through 2018. Then in late 2020, Woods had his fifth back surgery to remove a bone fragment that was pinching a nerve. The latest, and most significant, the injury occurred on Feb. 23, 2021. Driving over 80 mph by himself in an SUV in California, Woods’ car crashed, and he was trapped inside before EMS arrived. He suffered compound fractures in both of his legs before undergoing surgery. Woods was in serious but stable condition after the crash.
In 2009, Woods also became involved in a sex scandal where he went from the #1 player in the world to nearly derailing his career. The day after Thanksgiving, Woods crashed his car outside of his Florida mansion leaving him in a life-threatening condition. Elin Nordegren, his wife at the time, used two golf clubs to break the rear windows of the vehicle. Though Nordegren told police that she had broken the windows to help rescue an incoherent Woods from the vehicle, there was widespread speculation that she had shattered the glass following an argument. Tiger then bounced around the dating scene, almost all ending due to affairs/other mistresses involved. Within months between the incident and divorce, Woods had lost most of his sponsors, and his performance began to suffer — both due to his physical condition and a loss of focus on the course. In August 2010, Nordegren filed for divorce and received a $100 million settlement.
I asked Millbrook Student and avid golf fan, Ryan Boone if Tiger Woods should retire, and he replied; “Not at the moment but definitely by the end of next year I think he wants to get one big more major tournament in even though he pretty much knows he can not win one”
With injuries and age continuing to stack up, the end is drawing near for woods. Woods’s old college teammate, Notah Begay, was asked by NBC Golf if he thinks Tiger will continue to play. Begay said, “Now, walking 72 holes in a competitive environment, that’s the big question mark. But if he finds a way, and if anybody will, it will be him, to be able to deal with the 72-hole walk, the golf’s not the question to me, the heart’s not the question, it’s just a matter of physically can he endure that much stress on the leg.”