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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Author
Tiger Woods is not taking part in on this week’s Hero World Problem, an unofficial event he hosts within the Bahamas.
However the 15-time main champion will nonetheless be concerned within the occasion, and he met with the media Tuesday throughout a pre-tournament information convention. It was the primary time Woods had met with reporters since he missed the minimize on the Open Championship at Royal Troon in Scotland in July.
Woods addressed a variety of matters, including his health, his potential taking part in schedule for 2025, golfers being compensated to compete within the upcoming Ryder Cup and the PGA Tour’s ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund.
Tiger’s well being
Woods is not a part of the 20-man area that may compete this week at Albany golf membership. Final 12 months, Woods returned from a layoff of greater than seven months to complete 18th at even par, 20 strokes behind winner Scottie Scheffler.
In 2023, Tiger was getting back from surgical procedure to handle post-traumatic arthritis in his proper foot and ankle, which was brought on by accidents he sustained in a automobile wreck in February 2021.
This time, he is recovering from microdecompression surgery in September to alleviate ache from nerve impingement in his decrease again.
“I am not bodily prepared but to compete at this stage,” Woods stated. “The occasions I’ve come again right here, I used to be prepared to begin competing and taking part in once more. Sadly, not this time. I nonetheless must maintain coaching to provide myself the perfect probability going into subsequent 12 months and the occasions forward.”
Woods, 48, did not point out Tuesday when he deliberate to return to aggressive play, saying, “I really do not know.”
Prior to now, he competed along with his son, Charlie, within the PNC Championship, which can happen in Orlando, Florida, in two weeks. In that occasion, Tiger would be capable of use a cart.
In any other case, golf followers won’t see Woods play once more till the Genesis Invitational, which he hosts Feb. 13-16 at Riviera Nation Membership exterior Los Angeles, or the Masters, the primary main of the season, April 10-13 at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership.
Woods stated his again situation prompted ache in his leg that turned progressively worse this previous season. He made solely 5 begins on tour in 2024. He missed three cuts and withdrew from the Genesis Invitational due to sickness.
“I needed to toss [the season] away, and I wasn’t as sharp as I wanted to be and I did not play as a lot as I wanted to going into the main championships, and I did not play nicely at them,” Woods stated. “Hopefully, subsequent 12 months will likely be higher. I will be bodily stronger and higher. I do know the process helped, and hopefully that I can then construct upon that.”
On condition that Woods has undergone myriad again surgical procedures up to now, he was conscious of the lengthy restoration he confronted this time.
“I do know what to anticipate popping out of it,” Woods stated. “The aid I had, I did not have a spasm, I did not have the nerve ache, in order that was incredible. However I additionally understood that I nonetheless have an extended highway forward of me of rehab and restoration. I want I hadn’t recognized this, however I do know it very nicely and I do know the method, I understand how lengthy it is going to take.
“We’ll proceed doing all of the gymnasium work and proceed doing all of the protocols, and finally it would result in one thing the place I can compete once more.”
PGA Tour’s potential take care of the Public Funding Fund
It has been almost a 12 months for the reason that PGA Tour’s framework settlement with the DP World Tour and the PIF expired on Dec. 31, 2023.
There have been indicators of progress in latest months, together with a well-publicized meeting between the sides in New York in September, and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan taking part in golf with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship pro-am in early October.
As a member of the PGA Tour’s coverage board and vice chair of the PGA Tour Enterprises board, Woods has been concerned in negotiations with the PIF a few potential funding of greater than $1 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the tour’s for-profit wing.
On Tuesday, Woods indicated {that a} deal hasn’t been reached but, admitting that “all of us who’ve been part of this course of would have thought it will have occurred faster than this.”
Woods acknowledged that any settlement between the perimeters will likely be closely scrutinized by the U.S. Division of Justice’s Antitrust Division. It will possible be reviewed by antitrust regulators in Europe as nicely.
“Even when we had gotten a deal performed by now, it is nonetheless within the DOJ’s palms, however we want we might have had one thing extra concrete and additional alongside than we’re proper now,” Woods stated. “However issues are very fluid, we’re nonetheless working by way of it, it is taking place day by day. From a coverage board standpoint or from an Enterprise standpoint, issues are transferring and so they’re constructive. However sure, undoubtedly transferring.”
Though the perimeters appear to be aligned on many points, sources instructed ESPN on Tuesday that crew golf’s place sooner or later ecosystem of the game and precisely how LIV golfers will return to the PGA Tour stay sticking factors.
Final week, Bloomberg reported that the PIF had separate negotiations with the DP World Tour about an alliance that might give LIV Golf gamers entry to DP World Tour occasions. In alternate, the PIF would make a monetary funding within the European tour.
“This has been a really tough time within the recreation of golf,” Woods stated. “I believe that a number 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 the perfect expertise we all know we can provide them.”
In the identical information convention Tuesday, Pawan Munjal, CEO of Hero MotoCorp, which sponsors Woods’ event within the Bahamas, expressed frustration that the perimeters have not but struck a deal.
“Very merely put, the sport will not be benefiting, the gamers usually are not benefiting,” Munjal stated. “Possibly some on tour. What has to occur is everybody will get again collectively and the sport strikes on, the gamers transfer on, the sponsors transfer on. There’s confusion for the sponsors as nicely proper now, what to do, the place to go, how to have a look at the long run. The long run is unsure, which isn’t a superb factor.”
Ryder Cup compensation
Final month, the Telegraph of London reported that U.S. golfers can be paid $400,000 to compete within the Ryder Cup at Bethpage State Park in New York in September 2025.
The PGA of America presently provides every American golfer $200,000 to distribute to the charity of their alternative. The Telegraph did not say whether or not the $400,000 stipend would go to the gamers or charity.
Woods was concerned in comparable discussions with the PGA of America earlier than the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Nation Membership in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Woods stated he would not have an issue if golfers had been paid for competing within the Ryder Cup, so long as the cash went to charity.
“We did not need to receives a commission [in 1999], we wished to provide more cash to charity, and the media turned it round in opposition to us and stated we need to receives a commission,” Woods stated. “No, the Ryder Cup itself makes a lot cash, why cannot we allocate it to numerous charities? And what’s flawed with every participant, 12 gamers getting 1,000,000 {dollars} and the flexibility to divvy out to wonderful charities that they are concerned in that they can assist out?
“It is their hometowns, the place they’re from, all of the completely different junior golf associations or endeavors that the members are concerned in. It is by no means actually been about getting paid; it is how can we allocate funds to assist our sport or assist issues that we consider in again house, as a result of it is so arduous to get onto that crew, there’s solely 12 guys. What’s flawed with having the ability to allocate extra funds?”
After the Telegraph report, European captain Luke Donald consulted a lot of his crew’s golfers about whether or not they need to be paid. Rory McIlroy stated the consensus was to donate the cash again to the DP World Tour.
“It is one week the place you play for greater than your self,” Donald instructed the Telegraph. “It is … not about cash or factors, it is about coming collectively as a crew and the followers feed off that — it is all ardour. I do not assume we must always ever receives a commission.”
Whatever the European crew’s emotions towards compensation, Woods stated he hoped American golfers would get $5 million every and donate it to charity.
“That is superb, that is their proper to say that,” Woods stated. “I simply assume that the occasion is so massive that I believe that we can provide a lot cash to completely different charities, and I’ve stated that since ’99 once we had the Brookline negotiations. If the Europeans need to pay to be within the Ryder Cup, that is their determination to try this, that is their crew. I do know when it is on European soil that it subsidizes most of their tour, so it’s a massive occasion for the European Tour, and in the event that they need to pay to play in it, so be it.”
