NASSAU, Bahamas – Twenty-seven days shy of his 49th birthday, Tiger Woods confirmed up sooner than anticipated for his Tuesday press convention on the Hero World Problem. However his 30-minute chat with the media was proof that he had, in reality, arrived as the sport’s stateman, elder or in any other case.
Very like Jack Nicklaus and the late Arnold Palmer, when Woods talks, folks pay attention. However what stood out from his newest presser was a mix of measured takes and delicate choices.
Woods was requested about his well being and a sport that’s been on the shelf since The Open in July and one other again process, his fifth, in September.
Woods is not going to play this week’s Hero World Problem, and he nonetheless doesn’t know for sure when he’ll have the ability to tee it up once more.
“I’m not match sharp but. I’m nonetheless not there,” stated Woods, who just isn’t within the discipline this week at Albany. “These are 20 of one of the best gamers on this planet and I’m not sharp sufficient to compete in opposition to them at this degree. So, after I’m able to compete and play at this degree, then I’ll.”
It’s a well-known chorus from a participant who has endured a lifetime of bodily challenges since a 2021 automotive crash. He’s performed simply 10 official occasions since that crash in Los Angeles with 4 missed cuts and three withdrawals. Cautious optimism has been the usual for Tiger the previous few years, and he stays hopeful he can return to his plan to play “as soon as a month,” however these holding out hope that Woods has one other aggressive run in him will probably be dissatisfied.
What he has turn into, nonetheless, is the voice {of professional} golf. Rory McIlroy embraced the position all through a lot of 2022 and ’23 however he turned disillusioned following the PGA Tour’s determination to signal a framework settlement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund. Enter Tiger, the statesman.
In August 2023, Woods was named to the Tour’s coverage board in an unprecedented transfer that, in contrast to the opposite participant administrators on the board, has no time period restrict. By many accounts, he’s turn into a central determine within the negotiations between the Tour and PIF, and his voice is commonly the ultimate say on essential points.
It was the state of these negotiations and the way forward for skilled golf that was the first focus of Tuesday’s press convention.
“I feel all of us who’ve been part of this course of would have thought [a deal with PIF] would have occurred faster than this,” Woods stated. “Even when it did, we’re nonetheless on the rules of the [Department of Justice] saying it’s giving us hominus dominus [permission] that it’s going to undergo.
“Even when we had gotten a deal accomplished by now, it’s nonetheless within the DOJ’s fingers, however we want we might have had one thing extra concrete and additional alongside than we’re proper now. However issues are very fluid, we’re nonetheless working via it, it’s occurring day by day.”
It’s right here that requires a degree of interpretation. It could be professionally unsound for a member of the Tour’s coverage board to supply a really unfiltered tackle the continuing negotiations between the Tour and PIF, however Woods did pull again the curtain, nonetheless barely, on what he is perhaps pondering.
“We’re transferring on the fly to try to give everybody one of the best product we presumably can and provides the sport peace that it wants,” he stated. “This has been a really tough time within the sport of golf. I feel that a whole lot of it has been distractions on the great thing about the sport of golf and clearly we’re attempting to unify that and provides the followers one of the best expertise we all know we may give them.”
Highlights from Woods’ annual presser within the Bahamas, together with remarks on his well being, PIF talks and PGA Tour adjustments.
Woods, the statesman, was additionally requested in regards to the current transfer to lower discipline sizes and absolutely exempt Tour members beginning in 2026, a transfer that was authorized by the coverage board final month.
“Redefining what a Tour professional is,” Woods stated. “Sure, taking part in alternatives have been diminished at sure elements, however we even have participant fairness on this as nicely, which has by no means occurred earlier than. So, the gamers who’re taking part in, they’re going to get nicely compensated going ahead, which that was by no means the case.”
He additionally spoke on whether or not U.S. Ryder Cup gamers ought to be paid, a transfer that was initially talked about within the late Nineteen Nineties however, in response to a number of studies, is near changing into a actuality. Woods was pro-compensation, with a caveat.
“I must say that going again to my taking part in days, we had the identical dialog again in ’99 and we didn’t wish to receives a commission, we needed to offer more cash to charity, and the media turned it round in opposition to us and stated we wish to receives a commission,” Woods stated. “The Ryder Cup itself makes a lot cash, why can’t we allocate it to numerous charities? And what’s mistaken with every participant, 12 gamers getting one million {dollars} and the flexibility to divvy out to superb charities that they’re concerned in that they might help out?”
For a participant who has pathologically averted answering controversial questions in his profession, this new model is surprisingly insightful given the slender path the Tour is presently travelling. No, he didn’t supply a tough deadline for a possible cope with the Saudis or any actual particulars of the negotiations, however there was a peaceful dedication to his solutions that spoke volumes.
“I feel one thing will get accomplished [with the PIF]. In what kind or form, I don’t know but,” he supplied with no actual context however with the unstated acknowledgment that a very powerful voice within the room desires “peace.”
