Why The British Open Championship might be Tiger Woods’ best chance

TROON, Scotland – There are majors for the ages and majors for the aged.

The Open Championship ticks both boxes simultaneously with astonishing frequency.

Darren Clarke and Phil Mickelson, each in his early 40s, each making his 20th Open start, won in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Mark O’Meara was 41 when he won the ’98 Open. Tom Watson nearly won the ’09 Open at age 59.

Now along comes Tiger Woods, 48, who walked easily into the interview room at Royal Troon on Tuesday. He was there for scarcely a minute before he was asked about his physical condition and why this week might be different from this summer’s PGA Championship and U.S. Open, where he never broke par and missed both cuts.

“I've been training a lot better,” said Woods, who at least will be afforded a flat course at 7,385-yard, par-71 Royal Troon this week. “We've been busting it pretty hard in the gym, which has been good. Body's been feeling better to be able to do such things, and it translates on being able to hit the ball better.

“Can't quite stay out there during a practice session as long as I'd like,” he added, “but I'm able to do some things that I haven't done all year, which is nice.”

More than any of the other three majors, The Open rewards guile over brawn. As Woods reminded Tuesday, you can drive it as long as you like, but if your ball trickles into a pot bunker, you won’t be able to advance it very far with your second, sometimes splashing out sideways or even backward. The Open also allows players to knock the ball along the firm, bouncy turf rather than carry it prodigious distances in the air.

Woods is still long, but he hasn’t been able to get many competitive reps since his ankle fusion surgery in early 2021. He has played less than he’d hoped to this year, and the last time he made a cut was at the Masters in April, where he deteriorated over the weekend (82-77) and was in obvious discomfort during Saturday’s third round.

Still, Woods said at Troon on Tuesday that he believes he can win. He also addressed recent comments made by Colin Montgomerie, who wondered aloud why Woods was still bothering to try and play.

“Well, as a past champion, I'm exempt until I'm 60,” Woods said. “Colin's not. He's not a past champion, so he's not exempt. So, he doesn't get the opportunity to make that decision. I do.”

Asked to expand on that, the 82-time PGA TOUR winner Woods added:

“So, when I get to his age, I get to still make that decision, where he doesn't.”

A few of the writers laughed, then everyone moved on.

Woods, whose 15 major championship titles include three Open titles (2000, ’05, ’06), has stumbled out of the gates with 78s in his last two Open starts, in 2022 and ’19. His last top-10 finish in an Open was in 2018 (T6). He was not at Troon for the ’16 Open but finished T9 here in ’04 and T24 in ’97.

“Yeah, I've always loved playing here,” he said. “I've only played here twice. … I loved them both. I got a chance to play with Tom Weiskopf in his last practice round. That was neat for him to take me back to some of his holes and how he played them, and I obviously gave him some stick, and he's giving me stick, like we always do.

“We had a wonderful time playing just a wonderful practice round.”

As for the idea that guile sometimes wins out over youth at The Open, Woods was already thinking along those lines.

“The older you get, the less you can carry the golf ball,” he said. “But over here, you can run the golf ball 100 yards if you get the right wind and the right trajectory. It negates somewhat of the high launch conditions that most of the times you see on the TOUR that nowadays that populate the world. Here it's a little bit different. You can play on the ground.

“You can burn it on the ground with a 1-iron, 2-iron, 3-wood, whatever,” he continued. “Even drivers, and just flight it and get a bunch of run. I think that's one of the reasons why you see older champions up there on the board because they're not forced to have to carry the ball 320 yards anymore.”