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 quite a lot of subjects, 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 subject that can compete this week at Albany golf membership. Final yr, 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 deal with post-traumatic arthritis in his proper foot and ankle, which was brought on by 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 mentioned. “The instances 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 hold coaching to provide myself the very best probability going into subsequent yr 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.”
Prior to now, he competed together with his son, Charlie, within the PNC Championship, which can happen in Orlando, Florida, in two weeks. In that occasion, Tiger would be capable of use a cart.
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 exterior Los Angeles, or the Masters, the primary main of the season, April 10-13 at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership.
Woods mentioned his again situation prompted 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 foremost championships, and I did not play nicely at them,” Woods mentioned. “Hopefully, subsequent yr can be higher. I will be bodily stronger and higher. I do know the process helped, and hopefully that I can then construct upon that.”
On condition that Woods has undergone myriad again surgical procedures prior to now, he was conscious of the lengthy restoration he confronted this time.
“I do know what to anticipate popping out of it,” Woods mentioned. “The reduction I had, I did not have a spasm, I did not have the nerve ache, in order that was implausible. However I additionally understood that I nonetheless have a protracted street forward of me of rehab and restoration. I want I hadn’t recognized this, however I do know it very nicely and I do know the method, I understand how lengthy it may take.
“We’ll proceed doing all of the fitness center work and proceed doing all of the protocols, and ultimately it’ll result in one thing the place I can compete once more.”
PGA Tour’s potential cope with the Public Funding Fund
It has been practically a yr 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 latest 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 few 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 could have occurred faster than this.”
Woods acknowledged that any settlement between the perimeters can be closely scrutinized by the U.S. Division of Justice’s Antitrust Division. It will doubtless be reviewed by antitrust regulators in Europe as nicely.
“Even when we had gotten a deal accomplished by now, it is nonetheless within the DOJ’s fingers, however we want we’d have had one thing extra concrete and additional alongside than we’re proper now,” Woods mentioned. “However issues are very fluid, we’re nonetheless working by it, it is taking place day by day. From a coverage board standpoint or from an Enterprise standpoint, issues are shifting and so they’re constructive. However sure, positively shifting.”
Though the perimeters appear to be aligned on many points, sources informed ESPN on Tuesday that workforce 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 might 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 sport of golf,” Woods mentioned. “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 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 will not be benefiting, the gamers usually are not benefiting,” Munjal mentioned. “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’s confusion for the sponsors as nicely proper now, what to do, the place to go, how to have a look at the long run. The long run is unsure, which isn’t an excellent 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 provides 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 related discussions with the PGA of America earlier than the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Nation Membership in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Woods mentioned he would not have an issue if golfers had 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 needed to provide extra money to charity, and the media turned it round towards us and mentioned we wish to receives a commission,” Woods mentioned. “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 one million {dollars} and the flexibility to divvy out to superb charities that they are concerned in that they may help out?
“It is their hometowns, the place they’re from, all of the totally 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 imagine in again residence, as a result of it is so arduous to get onto that workforce, there’s solely 12 guys. What’s incorrect with with the ability to allocate extra funds?”
After the Telegraph report, European captain Luke Donald consulted a lot of his workforce’s golfers about whether or not they need to be paid. Rory McIlroy mentioned 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 informed the Telegraph. “It is … not about cash or factors, it is about coming collectively as a workforce and the followers feed off that — it is all ardour. I do not assume we must always ever receives a commission.”
Whatever the European workforce’s emotions towards compensation, Woods mentioned he hoped American golfers would get $5 million every and donate it to charity.
“That is wonderful, that is their proper to say that,” Woods mentioned. “I simply assume that the occasion is so huge that I feel that we may give a lot cash to totally different charities, and I’ve mentioned 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 workforce. I do know when it is on European soil that it subsidizes most of their tour, so it’s a huge occasion for the European Tour, and in the event that they wish to pay to play in it, so be it.”
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