Tiger Woods withdraws from the Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Tiger Woods withdrew from the Masters Tournament on Sunday, leaving in question his body’s ability to endure the rigors of walking 72 holes.

Woods’ game has impressed since he made his latest comeback at last year’s Masters. He’s been able to create enough speed to hang with a younger generation and retained the short-game touch around the greens. The walking has remained the hard part.

Woods has completed four rounds in just two of the five tournaments he’s played since his surprise return at Augusta National last year. He finished 47th in the 2022 Masters, his first tournament in 17 months, and was T45 at The Genesis Invitational, which he hosts, earlier this year.

This is the second time in the past year that his body has forced him to withdraw from a major after making the cut. Woods shot a second-round 69 to make the cut at last year’s PGA Championship but withdrew after shooting 10 shots higher in the third round. He missed the cut by a wide margin in last year’s Open Championship and shot 74-73 at Augusta National this week to make it on the number – he tied the tournament record for consecutive cuts made – but again couldn’t finish.

Cold and rain has torn the tournament’s schedule asunder, and Woods, one of 39 players who didn’t finish their second round Friday, returned early Saturday to do so. He played seven holes of his second round in the morning, then played the first seven holes of his third round in 6 over before play was suspended for the day. He closed the day with back-to-back doubles on Nos. 15 and 16, the first time in his Masters career that he’d made consecutive double bogeys.

Woods said before the tournament that cold weather on the weekend hampered him at last year’s Masters, and Mother Nature did him no favors this time, either. The high Saturday was 48 degrees.

As he prepared to hit a shot on the 17th hole Saturday, a video posted on social media showed him wincing and walking with a pronounced limp. Woods would have faced more than 27 holes Sunday if he had decided to play. That is something his caddie, Joe LaCava, said would be a challenge for him.

“I can’t imagine him trying to go 27-plus holes (in one day) around here,” LaCava told the New York Post. LaCava also described Woods as “pretty banged up.”

“He still has the power, the swing speed, the shots and the length to contend,” LaCava said. “The injury is devastating, but if he could take a cart he could contend tomorrow.”

Woods’ withdrawal was first announced by the Masters Tournament, and he followed with a tweet saying he had reaggravated the plantar fasciitis that forced him to withdraw from his Hero World Challenge in December. He said earlier in the week that it was his love for Augusta National that drove him to play this week despite the toll it takes on his body.

“It’s been a tough, tough road,” Woods said. “It's the appreciation of being able to play this game. And then to be able to come here and play at Augusta National, it's such a special place and it means so much to me in my heart to be able to come here and play this golf course and just appreciate the memories that I've had here, whether it's in competition or the practice rounds or the stories.”

How much Woods can, and will, play in the future remains uncertain. His appearance in a non-major, his Genesis Invitational, earlier this year seemed promising. He shot 69 in the first round, 67 in the third. The fact that he did not announce his intentions to compete this week implied that his appearance was assumed and that his preparations had gone as expected.

He admitted this week that he does not know how many Masters remain in his future. But will he continue to go to great lengths to play at venues that hold less sentimental value?

Woods competed in last year’s PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to build on the promising signs he displayed a month earlier at the Masters. But he skipped the U.S. Open to ensure he could play in The Open at St. Andrews; he’d already won twice at the game’s most historic venue.

He has played twice at Oak Hill, the site of next month’s PGA Championship, finishing T39 in 2003 and T40 a decade later. He has never competed at Los Angeles Country Club, but this year's U.S. Open offers him an opportunity to compete in his native Southern California. Woods won the 2006 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, famously hitting just one driver in extremely firm and fast conditions.

He has expressed his desire to emulate the schedule that Ben Hogan played after his car crash, competing in only the majors and a couple other events. But Woods also has said he has no desire to be a “ceremonial golfer.”

“If I’m playing, I’m playing to win,” Woods said earlier this year. “I can't have my mind, I can't wrap my mind around that as a competitor.

“There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that anymore, and it's probably sooner rather than later, but wrapping my ahead around that transition and being the ambassador role and just trying to be out here with the guys, no, that's not in my DNA.”