NASSAU, Bahamas – Twenty-seven days shy of his 49th birthday, Tiger Woods confirmed up sooner than anticipated for his Tuesday press convention on the Hero World Problem. However his 30-minute chat with the media was proof that he had, in actual fact, arrived as the sport’s stateman, elder or in any other case.
Very like Jack Nicklaus and the late Arnold Palmer, when Woods talks, individuals hear. However what stood out from his newest presser was a mixture of measured takes and refined choices.
Woods was requested about his well being and a recreation that’s been on the shelf since The Open in July and one other again process, his fifth, in September.
Woods is not going to play this week’s Hero World Problem, and he nonetheless doesn’t know for sure when he’ll be capable of tee it up once more.
“I’m not match sharp but. I’m nonetheless not there,” stated Woods, who shouldn’t be within the discipline this week at Albany. “These are 20 of the perfect gamers on this planet and I’m not sharp sufficient to compete towards them at this degree. So, after I’m able to compete and play at this degree, then I’ll.”
It’s a well-known chorus from a participant who has endured a lifetime of bodily challenges since a 2021 automobile crash. He’s performed simply 10 official occasions since that crash in Los Angeles with 4 missed cuts and three withdrawals. Cautious optimism has been the usual for Tiger the previous couple of years, and he stays hopeful he can return to his plan to play “as soon as a month,” however these holding out hope that Woods has one other aggressive run in him will possible be disenchanted.
What he has change into, nevertheless, is the voice {of professional} golf. Rory McIlroy embraced the function all through a lot of 2022 and ’23 however he grew to become disillusioned following the PGA Tour’s choice to signal a framework settlement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund. Enter Tiger, the statesman.
In August 2023, Woods was named to the Tour’s coverage board in an unprecedented transfer that, in contrast to the opposite participant administrators on the board, has no time period restrict. By many accounts, he’s change into a central determine within the negotiations between the Tour and PIF, and his voice is usually the ultimate say on essential points.
It was the state of these negotiations and the way forward for skilled golf that was the first focus of Tuesday’s press convention.
“I feel all of us who’ve been part of this course of would have thought [a deal with PIF] would have occurred faster than this,” Woods stated. “Even when it did, we’re nonetheless on the laws of the [Department of Justice] saying it’s giving us hominus dominus [permission] that it’s going to undergo.
“Even when we had gotten a deal executed by now, it’s nonetheless within the DOJ’s arms, however we want we might have had one thing extra concrete and additional alongside than we’re proper now. However issues are very fluid, we’re nonetheless working by way of it, it’s occurring day by day.”
It’s right here that requires a degree of interpretation. It will be professionally unsound for a member of the Tour’s coverage board to supply a really unfiltered tackle the continuing negotiations between the Tour and PIF, however Woods did pull again the curtain, nevertheless barely, on what he is likely to be pondering.
“We’re shifting on the fly to try to give everybody the perfect product we presumably can and provides the sport peace that it wants,” he stated. “This has been a really tough time within the recreation of golf. I feel that numerous it has been distractions on the great thing about the sport of golf and clearly we’re making an attempt to unify that and provides the followers the perfect expertise we all know we can provide them.”
Highlights from Woods’ annual presser within the Bahamas, together with remarks on his well being, PIF talks and PGA Tour modifications.
Woods, the statesman, was additionally requested concerning the latest transfer to reduce discipline sizes and absolutely exempt Tour members beginning in 2026, a transfer that was accepted by the coverage board final month.
“Redefining what a Tour professional is,” Woods stated. “Sure, enjoying alternatives have been diminished at sure components, however we even have participant fairness on this as effectively, which has by no means occurred earlier than. So, the gamers who’re enjoying, they’re going to get effectively compensated going ahead, which that was by no means the case.”
He additionally spoke on whether or not U.S. Ryder Cup gamers ought to be paid, a transfer that was initially talked about within the late Nineties however, in accordance with a number of studies, is near changing into a actuality. Woods was pro-compensation, with a caveat.
“I must say that going again to my enjoying days, we had the identical dialog again in ’99 and we didn’t wish to receives a commission, we needed to provide more cash to charity, and the media turned it round towards us and stated we wish to receives a commission,” Woods stated. “The Ryder Cup itself makes a lot cash, why can’t we allocate it to numerous charities? And what’s mistaken with every participant, 12 gamers getting 1,000,000 {dollars} and the flexibility to divvy out to wonderful charities that they’re concerned in that they may help out?”
For a participant who has pathologically averted answering controversial questions in his profession, this new model is surprisingly insightful given the slender path the Tour is at present travelling. No, he didn’t supply a tough deadline for a possible take care of the Saudis or any actual particulars of the negotiations, however there was a peaceful dedication to his solutions that spoke volumes.
“I feel one thing will get executed [with the PIF]. In what type or form, I don’t know but,” he supplied with no actual context however with the unstated acknowledgment that an important voice within the room needs “peace.”
