Since Tiger Woods suffered a serious traffic accident in February 2021 in which he almost lost his right leg, he has only played 11 tournaments. This week he is in Albany, Bahamas, where he is hosting the Hero World Challenge. Unfortunately, his role these days is precisely that, that of organizer and not participant of an event that brings together only 20 players, among whom is Keegan Bradley, captain of the United States for the next Ryder Cup.
However, the focus is once again on Woods, who announced a few days ago that he would not play the tournament. The winner of 15 majors continues to recover from a back operation he underwent in September and does not look ready. In fact, he is still seen limping these days. “I’m still not in a position to compete. “Here are 20 of the best players in the world and I’m not fit enough to compete against them at that level.”
Tiger explained that, although he was only able to attend five tournaments last season, he ended up ‘touched’: “I didn’t think my back would get so bad. It hurt quite a bit until the end of the year, so I had another operation to relieve the pain going down my leg. “I am rehabilitating to be as good as possible for next year,” he noted. El Tigre has been chaining one injury after another since that accident in 2021. One problem led to another and he has not been able to fulfill his goal of playing one tournament a month.
Woods noted that he still has “a long way to go” in terms of his recovery and that, “when I’m ready to compete at this level, I will.” Without daring to talk about deadlines or tournaments, at the very least, he left a hopeful message: “I know that the last operation helped me and I hope I can continue improving from there,” he said.
Get paid to play the Ryder Cup?
The press presented the Californian with one of the open debates facing 2025. Should Ryder Cup players be paid to play it? El Tigre has the same opinion as in 1999: “Going back to my playing days,” he began by saying as if he had already retired, “we already had this conversation and we didn’t want to get paid, but the media turned it around,” he commented. . Some players did want remuneration and that story prevailed then.
But Tiger insists that the United States team already had a plan and for him it is still valid: “The Ryder Cup itself generates a lot of money. What’s wrong with each of the 12 players receiving a million dollars and be allowed to divide it between different charities that they are involved with and can help?” The five-time green jacket winner added: “It’s never really been about getting paid, but rather how can we allocate funds to help our sport or help the things we believe in back home, because it’s very difficult to get into that team. What’s wrong with being able to allocate more funds?” he explained.
