The illusion grows in inverse proportion to its appearances. It is increasingly rare to see Tiger Woods playing high level competitive golf. Every time this happens, the hope of having him fight for the championship and, even better, that the return is sustained over time, is strengthened. Both things are in his desire. Three years after the serious car accident that took them off the field, a month and a half after turning 48, your own body is your biggest obstacle.
His first participation of 2024, after having played only two official competitions last year (and five in the last two seasons), occurred at the Genesis Open, at Riviera Country Club, in Los Angeles. The crowd gathered around his group, which came out in the morning, and Tiger received the usual encouragement from the fans. Aside from his still inconsistent golf, with some touches of genius and some shots unbecoming of his lineage, he was seen walking without problems. Its challenges are beyond what happens in the links. After spending his entire career with Nike, he launched his own golf clothing brand, Sun Day Red, in partnership with Taylor Made. In addition, he debuted a caddy.
“My round was good and indifferent,” he analyzed. “I holed out a few, but I had trouble reading the speed of the greens. They were much faster than what Riviera was historically. I missed a lot of shots on the green, too. “It was good, but indifferent.” He finished with a 72 (+1), ranking 49th, including 4 birdies and 5 bogeys.
The biggest unknown is his physical condition.. After the car accident he suffered three years ago, he was never the same. Last year he only played two official tournaments, this same Genesis Open and the Masters, which he ended up abandoning after two rounds. Even walking he found it difficult. The hope of seeing him again in fullness reappeared in December when he participated in the Hero World Challenge, an unofficial PGA Tour competition, where he completed all four rounds. He then played in the PNC Championship, the traditional father-son contest, with his first-born son Charlie.
An error on the second shot on the 18th set off the alarm, but he immediately recovered by passing the ball through a gap between two trees to leave it above the green. “My back was hard. It was hurting me in the last three holes, I had a spasm and I didn’t rotate well,” Tiger justified before the Golf Channel cameras as soon as the round ended. “I still have some treatment and work to do to be ready for tomorrow, but it’s part of the deal, it’s part of the challenge.”
On Wednesday, Woods played the Pro-am with Josh Allen, the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, and instead of playing the regulation 9 holes he made the complete round of 18. The good signs about his physical condition are accumulating. “I don’t have the same speed that he had. I don’t have the ability to practice the same number of hours. But I’m still working on making sure I can hit the ball with the center of the clubface,” Woods had said during the week. “If I can do that consistently, one of the reasons I don’t have a teacher now, what my body does day after day, week after week, looks different. I can’t shape myself now, it’s all in the feeling I have in my hands”.
Tiger shared the group with two special players for him. On the one hand, Justin Thomas, a kind of golfing godson. The double PGA Championship winner didn’t get off to a good start, but he recovered and finished with a 72 (+1). The other member of the threesome was Gary Woodland, who received an invitation from the organization (Tiger Woods, precisely), after last September he underwent surgery in which a non-cancerous brain tumor was removed. He returned to play in mid-January, participated in three tournaments and for the first time is on track to make the cut after a great round of 70, the best of the three.
“What Gary went through is scary. The fact that he can be here, competing with us, couldn’t have been better for the group,” Tiger celebrated. “It was very nice and inspiring to play next to him all day.”
The Genesis Invitational, which began play in 1926 as the Los Angeles Open, is a special tournament for Tiger. Firstly, because the competition, one of the signature events of the season with a field reduced to 70 players, a cutoff after 36 holes and 20 million dollars in prize money (4 of them for the winner), is organized by and is benefit of his own foundation since 2018. In addition, that was the first professional tournament he played, at the age of 16 as an amateur. It was in 1992, invited by the organization. Dressed in a wide red, blue and white striped polo shirt and white cap and pants, he started with birdie, but shot rounds of 72 and 76 and missed the qualifying cut.
Yesterday he also started by going down the par 5 of the 1st hole. He missed the green with the second shot but corrected it with an immaculate approach. He ended up rounding off a very hard-fought, irregular round, which included five birdies, six bogeys and seven pars.
The round was also a first for Tiger. He debuted his new clothing, called Sun Day Red, a name that alludes to the fact that on Sundays, days when tournaments are defined, Woods wears red. Rare to see him in a non-Nike outfit after a 27-year alliance.
Another novelty was in his bag. Tiger played for the first time with Lance Barrett as a caddy, definitively confirming the separation with Joe LaCava, who had led the way for him for the last 12 years. LaCava is now with Patrick Cantlay, who at press time was the leader with -7, followed at one by Luke List and Australians Cam Davis and Jason Day.
The only Argentine among the 70 privileged is Emiliano Grillo. The Chaco native, who has been obtaining good results this year (22nd, 14th, 20th and 7th in his last four appearances), closed with a birdie at 18 and signed a round of 70 (-1) that leaves him expectant in 34th place, still with lots of golf ahead. Today he will leave at 3:25 p.m. (Argentine time).
Riviera Country Club is also special to Tiger because, although he has lived in Florida for years, it is only an hour and a half from Cypress, his hometown, south of Los Angeles. But it is also the competition that played the most without being able to win. This is his 16th participation in the Genesis Open, and although the title seems far away, seeing it in action is already a cause for rejoicing. The wish: that it was the first round of many more to come.
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