LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY | Of the phenomena that have made Tiger Woods a famous name around the world, recognisable solely by his first name, one is the fact that as his game wanes what would happen to others does not happen to him. The interest in Woods does not diminish. In fact, it waxes.
Take events on the second hole, his 11th after starting on the back nine, in his opening round of the PGA Championship on Thursday at Valhalla Golf Club. On the raised tee, one of the three men making up this group is practicing his golf swing. All eyes are trained on him. Back goes his driver, the shaft momentarily glinting in the sun, before coming down with a whoosh. Then another swing and another whoosh. Then a third and final swing and a third and final whoosh. It could have been Keegan Bradley. It wasn’t. Nor was it Adam Scott.
It was a man who will be 49 on the next-to-last day of this year, a man prone to taking off his white cap to wipe his face on the left sleeve of his cerise-coloured, sweat-stained shirt. It was Woods, and as he swung, 100, 200 or even 300 mobile phones were raised ready to capture the moment. As spectators held up their phones, their fingers poised to press the button that would record this action for posterity, they looked like soldiers, rifles raised, about to fire a volley of salute.
So it was all the way around Valhalla’s 7,600 yards. The loudest applause that reverberated off the adjacent trees was always for Woods. The only name called out by spectators was Tiger’s. There were three men in the group, all major champions, but only one mattered. Thousands trailed behind him, standing four or five deep around the seventh green, lining every inch of space from the eighth tee to the eighth green, applauding him as he walked to his ball in the middle of the ninth fairway.
Physically, Woods looks trim and broad-shouldered. It is when he walks that the effect of the injuries that have marked his recent life become apparent. As he climbed to the seventh tee, deep in smiling conversation with Scott, his gait was noticeably less smooth and his stride noticeably shorter than Scott’s. It was a little jerky even. No wonder after what he has been through.
One characteristic of Woods’ remains undiminished, though his swing is less powerful, his body more frail and the force field that once surrounded him and helped shrivel the challenges of his rivals has disappeared. He remains unsurpassed at the art of grinding and making the best of what he has. He never stops trying, and you can see and almost feel the visible manifestations of this in his mutterings to himself, the intensity with which he stares down a shot and the obvious determination he exudes on a golf course. Indeed, he doesn’t know how not to try. “You know me,” he has said again and again down the years, whether in Europe, Asia or the U.S. “I never stop grinding. There’s no quit in me.”
He played well in the morning heat, making a birdie on the third hole, his 12th, and another on the seventh, his 16th, to get to 1-under before three-putt bogeys on his last two holes.
He might no longer threaten to win events. He finished last of those who played four rounds at the Masters, and his score on Thursday, a 72, was 1 over par. He played well in the morning heat, making a birdie on the third hole, his 12th, and another on the seventh, his 16th, to get to 1-under before three-putt bogeys on his last two holes.
On the first, his drive disappeared into a grove of trees to the left of the fairway. From across the other side of the fairway, I watched him bend beneath the branches of some trees and peer toward the green. He looked this way and that, searching for a way to escape the arboreal prison in which he found himself. He soon found it. His swing was so short that it made Tommy Fleetwood’s sawn-off follow through seem lengthy. There was a roar as his ball flew out of the trees and ended on the putting surface, 25 feet from the flagstick.
“How much of the green could you see from in the trees?” I asked Woods later, thinking that he effected a sort of Seve Ballesteros-type recovery. “All of it,” he said. I could see the whole green. I could see it underneath the trees. I just had to go around a few trees. Hit a nice little draw 8-iron in there.”
I asked a follow up question. “How difficult a shot was it?” His reply came easily and quickly. “You’ve seen me in the trees before,” he replied with a smile.
But he remains one of the objects of attention, because of what he was and what he has become. His role is no longer the man for his rivals to strive to beat but that of an elder citizen of a game he once dominated. Hugely respected for what he has achieved, he finds himself more and more drawn into the off-course affairs of the game he once dominated.
For example, there has been an assumption recently that Woods would captain the U.S. team at the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black on Long Island. He seemed to confirm this at Augusta last month when he said, “Seth [Waugh, chief executive of the PGA of America] and I are still talking.” Now that Woods is taking a greater interest in the negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – he is the only player on the Policy Board who sits on the transactions committee and has a vote. It is understood, though not confirmed, that has withdrawn his desire to fulfill that role. He remains the frontrunner to lead a U.S. team at the 2027 Ryder Cup because of his friendship with JP McManus, the owner of Ireland’s Adare Manor, the venue.
Nowadays it is his thoughts that are sought out more than his play is admired. What did he think of the rough at Valhalla? he was asked. Did he know what his swing speed was? “At home, yes,” he replied. “But not here. I am concentrating on trying to hit the right shots.”
How was it that he could make a halfway cut in a tournament better than others? “Well, you can’t win a tournament unless you make the cut. That’s the whole idea is get to the weekend so that you can participate and have a chance to win. I’ve been on the cut number and have won tournaments, or I’ve been ahead and leading tournaments and I’ve won tournaments. But you have to get to the weekend in order to win a golf tournament.”
At that moment, Woods was 1 over par and 10 strokes behind Xander Schauffele, the first-round leader. Even for Woods, it was a tall order for him to win through to play at the weekend. But would anyone bet against it?