Woods, who played with his son Charlie at the parent-child PNC Championship over the weekend, is nearing the end of a 10-year extension signed with Nike in 2013, and rumours in the industry are swirling that Woods and the apparel manufacturer are parting ways, punctuated by the NoLayingUp podcast mentioning the PNC could mark Woods’ last outing with the brand.

Following his Saturday round, Woods was asked if he could clarify his relationship with Nike, and his answer did little to dispel the rumours.

“I’m still wearing their product,” Woods replied. When Woods was asked about his future with Nike, he repeated, “I’m still wearing their product.”

The 15-time major winner has been with the company since 1996, signing a five-year, $40 million contract upon turning pro. That contract has been upped four times, with Woods reportedly receiving $500 million over the lifetime of that deal. Woods had his own apparel line, and began using Nike clubs when the company entered the equipment realm in the early 2000s.

However, Nike exited the golf equipment business in 2016, which allowed Woods to transition to TaylorMade golf clubs and Bridgestone golf balls. Additionally, when returning to competitive play at the 2022 Masters following his 2021 single-car accident, Woods was wearing FootJoy shoes instead of Nike. “Like golf fans around the world, we are delighted to see Tiger back on the course,” Nike said in a statement. “He is an incredible athlete, and it is phenomenal to see him returning to the game at this level. His story continues to transcend sport and inspire us all. As he continues his return, we will work with him to meet his new needs.” But over the next two seasons Woods continued to wear FootJoys, begging the question if his Nike deal would be nearing an end.

Rumours are also swirling that Nike may be exiting the golf business altogether, or license out its golf brand to another company, although Nike continues to be silent on the matter. Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Scottie Scheffler, Nelly Korda and Tony Finau headline Nike’s current professional stable.

Image: Mike Ehrmann

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Over that span we’ve seen Charlie make his first eagle, shape shots both ways, display a mighty recoil with his driver and drain long birdie putts all while displaying many of the same mannerisms we’ve seen from his Hall of Fame father over the past 25 years. This year, now 14, Charlie stepped back a tee and is playing from the same distance as the likes of John Daly, Jim Furyk, Nelly Korda, Vijay Singh and Steve Stricker.

“I think his speed has gone dramatically up since last year,” Tiger said when assessing Charlie’s game. “But I think that more than anything, it’s just the fact that he’s grown so fast. The aches and pains of growing, just teenage life.”

Charlie is bigger and stronger. On Saturday during the first round, he carried a drive 320 yards, with the ball ending just over the back of the green on the par-4 12th hole.

321 yards? No problem.

Charlie Woods just drove it OVER the green. ?

pic.twitter.com/DfzND47rDI

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 16, 2023

“I sort of didn’t have the speed that he has at that age,” Tiger said. “But also, I didn’t have the equipment, either. The equipment is so different.”

One thing that is difficult to quantify from watching Charlie on television each year is how his skills compare with other junior golfers in the country. He’s seen alongside the most famous golfer on the planet hitting great golf shots, and annually, whether on social media or from people in the gallery, there are those who contend that he’ll have a long successful PGA Tour career and even potentially win major championships like his old man.

While that could happen, it’s also wise to pump the breaks and realize how far Charlie has come in a relatively short time. Afterall, he mostly played soccer growing up in South Florida and it wasn’t until 2020—when COVID-19 locked down the world—that Charlie found a deeper passion for golf and started to take the game more seriously. That was only three years ago.

“People need to quit comparing him to other kids who have been playing competitive golf for more time,” said a Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher in America. “People need to wait and see where he is in five years, 10 years.”

Of course, that’s nearly impossible because his last name is Woods. But the point is valid.

This was Charlie’s first year playing a full competitive junior schedule, playing mostly state and regional competitions.

Junior Golf Scoreboard, which has ranked junior golfers since the late 1990s, has Charlie ranked No. 1,326 out of a database of 10,616 juniors. He’s the 86th-ranked player in those same rankings for the Class of 2027. In the 16 events Charlie played that are recorded in the JGS system, he collected two victories and his low score of 66 came in September in the second round of the Notah Begay III Florida Regional qualifier win at Mission Inn in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla., the same place where he shot 78-76 last month to help his high school team win the Class 1A Florida State Championship, which is not a part of the JGS rankings.

The evolution of Charlie Woods. ? pic.twitter.com/Z3iUOYc2FC

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 16, 2023

Speaking of high school, Florida is a talent-rich state that produces many Division I golfers each year. Charlie ranked 80th overall in high school in Florida this season out of 4,088 boys in the iWanamaker ranking system. He was the ninth-ranked freshman in Florida out of 657 and ranked 28th out of 1,420 in Class 1A, where his Benjamin school competes.

“Charlie is ultra-talented and while he is still newer to competitive golf he has the opportunity to excel long term because of the wealth of experience he can tap into and the opportunity to learn from the GOAT on how to play and prepare,” the aforementioned Top 50 Teacher said. “So many juniors never get exposed to that. In fact one of the things I’ve found is that young players who grow up around really good players have an edge on learning to play. He obviously has a huge leg up in that department.”

What will be interesting moving forward is to see how Charlie might compare to his peers if exposed to more national competition. To date, he has not competed in any AJGA events (he became eligible when he turned 13) nor has he attempted to qualify for any USGA national amateur events, most specifically the U.S. Junior Amateur, an event Tiger won three consecutive years from 1991 to 1993.

Charlie Woods – Mike Mulholland

Said Tiger: “I provide guardrails for him and things that I would like to see him learn and address, but also, then again, I’m trying to provide as much space as I can for him. Because there’s so much of the noise in our lives that people are always trying to get stuff out of us, and my job as a parent is to protect him from a lot of that stuff.

“Also, then again, as a teenager, I want him to try and become his own man at the same time. So it’s a challenge as a parent and to provide that—that atmosphere for him, to learn, to grow, and have that freedom, meanwhile understanding that there’s so much noise looking into our lives at the same time.”

A philosophy that appears to be working beautifully so far.

Charlie Woods is back!@LukeKerrDineen shares what junior golfers can learn from his swing. pic.twitter.com/zxBD7v6Fq2

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 15, 2023

• • •

Florida State High School (iWanamaker)

-Ranked 80th overall out of 4,088 players

-Ninth-ranked freshman out of 657

-Ranked 28th out of 1,420 in Class 1A

Junior Golf Scoreboard

-Ranked No. 1,326 out of 10,616 players

-86th in the Class of 2027

Results of 16 events on JGS rankings

Jan. 7-8, IMG Junior Honda Classic (81-77, 21st place)

Feb. 25-26, HJGT South Florida Junior Open (75-71, 2)

March 4-5, HJGT Jensen Beach Spring Junior Open (79-82, 6)

March 18-19, SFPGA Medalist Tour (78-78, 19)

April 22-23, HJGT PGA National Junior Open (77-82, 18)

April 29-30, SFPGA Medalist Tour (75, 8)

May 6-7, SFPGA Medalist Tour (83-75, 15)

June 3-4, HJGT Major Championship (72-71, WIN)

June 19-20, SFPGA Championship (75-81, 33)

June 22-23, SFPGA Nicklaus Junior Championship (79-75, 20)

Aug. 2-4, SFPGA Junior Cup (75-68-76, 10)

Aug. 19-20, FJT Sandridge Open (74-79, 13)

Sept. 2-4, SFPGA Labor Day Classic (80-70-82, 35)

Sept. 23-24, Notah Begay Florida Regional (71-66, WIN)

Nov. 4-5, Notah Begay Junior National Championship (73-74-68, 35)

Dec. 2-3, SFPGA Tour Championship (69-73, 5)

(HJGT: Hurricane Junior Golf Tour; SFPGA: South Florida PGA Section; FJT: Florida Junior Tour)

Main Image: Getty

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Sure, his body hurts. That’s to be expected after all the injuries and surgeries that he has had over the years. Yet after playing six competitive rounds of golf in the last two weeks—five of them walking, one riding in a golf cart—the 15-time major champion was pleased with how he felt upon wrapping up a fourth consecutive appearance with son Charlie at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.

“I think that a lot of things are aching a lot more than my ankle, which is the way it goes,” said Woods, who had surgery on his right ankle in April after withdrawing from the Masters prior to the third round. “I’ll be able to walk and play. We’ve been working out hard, been able to recover. We’ve been training every day, which is great. It’s been nice to knock off a lot of the rust and some of the doubt that I’ve had because quite frankly I haven’t hit a shot that counted in a long time.”

The Woods shot 64-61 to tie for fifth place at 19 under par, six shots behind Bernhard and Jason Langer at 25 under. The winning duo shot 60-59 and Bernhard, 66, won this championship for the fifth time overall, the third time with Jason. David Duval and his son Brady eagled the final hole to sneak by the Singhs to grab second place.

A year ago, Woods was set to play in the Hero World Challenge, but withdrew late because of plantar fasciitis. He did, however, play the 2023 PNC, but rode in a golf cart for the 36-hole event.

This year, he opened his PGA Tour season with a tie for 45th place at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, then made the cut at the Masters before the WD. He did not appear in another event until the Hero two weeks ago in the Bahamas, where he shot 75-70-71-72 to finish 18th in the 20-man field.

The PNC Championship is more about fun than competition. Woods played in the pro-am Friday with Annika Sorenstam and her son Will McGee, then played in the first round with his buddy Justin Thomas and his father Mike. Woods made it a full family affair by having his daughter Sam serve as caddie for both days, something she had never done.

On Sunday, playing with Steve Stricker and his daughter Izzi, the Woods were too far off the lead to really contend—coming off an opening round in which Charlie proclaimed “we just suck at putting”—and sputtered at the start, making par on three of the first four holes. But Tiger rolled in an eagle putt on the fifth hole and then Charlie provided the loudest roars of the day when he chipped in from short, left of the green on the par-4 ninth hole. A Tiger-like fist pump followed the feat.

CHARLIE WOODS!!

A chip-in birdie for Team Woods @PNCChampionship ? pic.twitter.com/0nh0KdP0JV

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 17, 2023

They turned in 31, added six more birdies over the final nine holes and proclaimed the week a success even though they fell short of their goal.

“Well, you had to hit a lot of different shots,” said Tiger, who will turn 48 on Dec. 30. “But at the end of the day, it’s a scramble. We get ball-in-hand, and to be able to tee the ball up, this would have been a very different day if we had to play the ball down or we couldn’t tee it up and put the ball-in-hand.

“I was able to hit a lot of little nifty little shots, like 10, or some of the shots I hit pin-high just because we had ball-in-hand. But the fact that I was able to hit the shots both ways, which was nice.”

Where Tiger plays next is unclear, but he indicated two weeks ago that he would love to play in one event a month starting most likely in February at the Genesis Invitational, which benefits his Tiger Woods Foundation. If healthy, that means a schedule of something like the Genesis, Players, Masters, PGA, U.S. Open and Open Championship are all possibilities. And yes, he still believes he can win again.

“I think given the fact that, if I’m able to practice and do the things that I know I can do, and prepare, I know that I can still do it,” he said. “I can still hit the golf ball. It’s just a matter of prepping and get enough reps in and get enough work in and being right physically and the endurance capability of it.

“I know if I can practice, I know I can still do it. I can still hit the golf ball. I can still chip. I can still putt. Granted it’s also putting it all together for 72 holes. That’s the challenging part of it.”

Main Image: Andrew Redington

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On Saturday, during the first round of this year’s event, Sam, 16, moved inside the ropes to handle the caddie duties for her dad, the first time she’s held the job.

Tiger’s long time business partner Rob McNamara caddied for Woods two weeks ago at the Hero World Challenge and again on Friday here during the pro-am. Charlie’s caddie is a high school teammate.

For the first time, Sam Woods is caddying for her father today @TigerWoods | @PNCChampionship pic.twitter.com/Wy8V8Q4nm1

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 16, 2023

“Sam was fantastic,” Woods said after shooting eight-under 64. “This is the first time she’s ever done this, so it couldn’t have been any more special for all of us.

“For me to have both my kids inside the ropes like this and participating and playing and being part of the game of golf like this, it couldn’t have been more special for me, and I know that we do this a lot at home, needle each other and have a great time. But it was more special to do it in a tournament like this.”

Caddie duties this weekend aren’t as strenuous as in most other events. With impending nasty weather, all players and caddies are riding in golf carts in hopes of playing as quickly as possible. The Woods’ are paired with Justin Thomas and his father Mike.

The last time Sam Woods was in the spotlight came last year when she inducted her father into the World Golf Hall of Fame prior to the Players Championship.

“My dad found himself in a position to make an 18-foot putt to force a [2007] U.S. Open playoff, which he missed by a foot,” Sam said during that speech. “He then had to rush to the airport, fly from Pittsburgh to Orlando, and drive to the Winnie Palmer Hospital. Within five minutes of walking into the hospital room, still wearing his red golf shirt, on June 18, I was born. He may have lost that day, but he won the greatest gift of all.”

Image: Mike Mulholland

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That’s because the 15-time major champ isn’t currently qualified for the US Open, something recently pointed out by Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig.

As Harig also points out, this situation can—and will—be easily fixed by the USGA extending Woods a special exemption. Phil Mickelson most recently received one in 2021, and it’s something the USGA has done as far back as Ben Hogan in 1966. Jack Nicklaus (eight) and Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson (five a piece) have received the most special exemptions in US Open history.

Amazingly, this is the first major Woods isn’t automatically in (again, for now) since the 1996 PGA Championship, which took place a couple weeks before Tiger turned pro. He won his first major as a pro, the 1997 Masters, by 12 shots.

That victory made Woods exempt at the Masters for life, and he also holds that status at the PGA Championship. He is exempt until he’s 60 at the Open Championship. But his US Open exemption—five years from his most recent Masters win in 2019—ran out in 2023 when he was unable to play in the event after undergoing subtalar fusion surgery on his right ankle in April.

Woods, who turns 48 at the end of December, could also qualify for the tournament by playing his way into the top 60 of the Official World Golf Ranking by a cut-off date in late spring. But that’s a tall order considering he’s currently ranked 898th. Or, he could show up at a sectional qualifier, but again, we’re pretty sure that’s not going to be necessary for the nine-time (three US Opens, three US Amateurs, and three US Juniors) USGA champ.

Woods made his return to competitive golf last month at the Hero World Challenge, finishing 18th in the field of 20. The 2024 US Open will be held June 13-16 at Pinehurst No. 2.

Main Image: Tracy Wilcox

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Tiger Woods, as he is with many things, has a few different options to choose from. His Old Course 3-wood jumps to mind, as does the 3-iron fairway bunker shot at the 2002 PGA Championship.

But for me, it’s the bunker shot on the 72nd hole of the 2000 Canadian Open. 218 yards from a fairway bunker over water to a tucked pin, which won him the tournament.

Back in 2001, Golf Digest asked him about that shot, and what golfers can learn from it. Turns out, quite a lot.

“It seemed like a miracle shot, but believe me, it was more dramatic than it was difficult,” he said.

That’s because of a few simple keys that the rest of us would do well to remember:

1. Ball in the middle of your stance

“Solid contact is crucial when playing a fairway bunker shot,” Tiger writes. So all the tweaks he makes involve ensuring solid contact.

The first of those is moving the ball back in your stance slightly, which will help the club hit the ball first, before the sand.

2. Raise your chin

The only swing thought golfers should have through the ball, Tiger says, is to “stay tall through impact.” A simple way of doing this, Tiger writes, is to “raise your chin slightly just before starting your backswing.”

3. Club up

Tiger also makes clear that you should take at least one more club from fairway bunkers than you ordinarily would. Probably more like two. For reasons we’re about to find out…

4. Dig in

One of the hardest things about swinging off sand is that it’s an extremely unstable surface. Your feet are prone to sliding around. So, to prevent this, dig your feet into the sand.

5. Choke down

Once you’ve dug your feet into the sand, it’s time to choke down on the grip. Tiger uses a pretty simple formula for this:

“I choke down on [the club] in direct proportion to how much I dig my feet into the sand—usually about half an inch.”

6. Slow down

Both those things alone are enough to make taking some extra club the right move, as is Tiger’s final tip:

“I decrease my swing speed by about 30 per cent,” he writes. “This not only increases accuracy but also allows me to keep my balance.”

The combination of all of these things can upgrade your fairway bunker game, and provide the foundation for one of the best shots of Tiger’s career.

Main image: Supplied

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Woods started last week 1,328th in the ranking, the lowest point he had ever fallen to in his entire career. To put that in perspective, the 15-time major champion was beside names like Jonathan Agren and Sebastian Heisele, only one of whom has their own Wikipedia page.

That didn’t last long, as Woods made an enormous jump in the World Ranking off of an 18th-place finish at the Hero World Challenge. Woods is now ranked 898th, a 430-spot vault that has caused plenty of Golf Twitter controversy. The reason? There were only 20 players in the field at the Hero World Challenge, an event Woods is the host of and one that benefits his Tiger Woods Foundation. The golf legend beat just two players: reigning U.S. Open champ Wyndham Clark and Will Zalatoris, who finished at 11-over par after returning from a nine-month layoff after undergoing back surgery.

Speaking of Zalatoris, his last-place finish earned him more World Ranking points than Alex Fitzpatrick earned for his T-8 finish at the ISPS Handa Australian Open, as first pointed out by @LIVGolfUpdates on X, formerly known as Twitter:

Will Zalatoris will receive 2.1 world ranking points for his 20th place finish at the Hero World Challenge. Last by 9 shots.

He shot 81-68-79-71.

Alex Fitzpatrick will receive 1.8 for his T8 at The Australian Open.

He shot 68-66-66-74.

It’s time to move on from OWGR.

— LIV Golf Updates (@LIVGolfUpdates) December 3, 2023

Only furthering the head-scratchiness of this is the fact that Joaquin Niemann, who won the Australian Open, only received two more points (14.79536) than Justin Thomas (12.03997), who finished in third at Albany. That also secured Thomas’ spot inside the top 30 (he’s currently 26th) ahead of 2024. If he remains inside the top 30 ahead of the second signature event of 2024, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he will be in the field. Thomas will not be in the Sentry, which is reserved for winners from the previous calendar year as well as the top 50 players from the 2023 FedEx Cup points list (those who made it to the BMW Championship, which Thomas did not).

As for Zalatoris, his last-place finish, by nine shots from 19th place, allowed him to remain 33rd in the OWGR after dropping during his layoff from eighth after his last official start at the WGC-Dell Match Play in March.

Main Image: Mike Ehrmann

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So the six-time PGA Tour winner already has some practical experience with what the USGA and R&A might be getting ready to do. Citing industry sources, Golf Digest reported Friday that golf’s governing bodies are expected to announce next week a rule change that would universally roll back golf ball distances. The expected rule change comes after a three-year “Notice and Comment” period with equipment manufacturers and other golf organisations, including the PGA Tour.

It is expected that a new standard for testing the conformity of golf balls would be introduced for elite players and competitions in 2028 and then for recreational players in 2030.

“Srixon made whatever the USGA was saying, and it was 40, 50 yards [shorter] with my driver,” Bradley, 37, said Saturday at the Hero World Challenge. “I was a club or two shorter. I think that the USGA … everything that they do is reactionary. They don’t think of a solution. They just think we’re going to affect a hundred percent of the population that plays golf. For the amateur world to hit the ball shorter is monstrous. I can’t think of anything more stupid than that. I don’t think it’s very smart at all, especially when golf’s growing in popularity literally coming out of COVID.”

Among players who were asked about the potential rule change at the Hero World Challenge, no one thought a universal roll back was a good idea. And only tournament host Tiger Woods thinks it would be the right thing to do in the professional game. He and World No. 2 Rory McIlroy have been the biggest proponents of reigning in the ball at the elite level.

“We’ve been hammering the ball needs to slow down,” Woods, 47, said after a third-round one-under 71 at Albany, “but it has kept speeding up my entire time on tour and here we are. I’ve always been for bifurcation. I’ve always said that. Just like wood bats and metal bats [in baseball].”

On Sunday morning, Rory McIlroy took to X (formerly Twitter) with a passionate case for the rollback and against its critics.

I don’t understand the anger about the golf ball roll back. It will make no difference whatsoever to the average golfer and puts golf back on a path of sustainability. It will also help bring back certain skills in the pro game that have been eradicated over the past 2 decades.…

— Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) December 3, 2023

Former U.S. Open champion Justin Rose was surprised to hear that the governing bodies were considering an across-the-board change for amateurs as well as professionals.

“I think the way I saw it going was the tour doing one thing [with a model local rule] and maybe major championships doing another. And that puts a lot of pressure on the tour,” Rose, 43, of England, said. “Now if recreational golf is rolling back, too, it doesn’t make sense for the tour to stay where we were. Because I think if the amateurs were going to continue to stay where they were, the tour, were going to say, ‘OK, we’re going to stay where we are because we want the fan to be able to relate to the tour player.’ That made sense to me. And then obviously if there was a ball for a major championship then so be it, we’d have to learn how to adapt. So that’s the way I would’ve hedged it going. Now it’s even a weirder situation. The amateurs are playing the ball that’s slower than what we’re playing on tour. That doesn’t feel right either.”

Rickie Fowler is not a fan of the ruling bodies making any change to the ball at any level. “There are other ways of going about this,” he said, adding that they are “20 years too late” on the issue.

But he is especially opposed to a shorter ball for recreational players. “To take the game and knock it back when it’s in the best position it’s ever been in, I don’t want to see it as the golf ball being necessarily the right move,” Fowler added. “I don’t see how when we’re at the best place the game has ever been. ‘Oh, you love the game? Yeah. Hey, thanks for joining us over COVID. Now we’re going to make you hit it 20 yards shorter. Have fun.’ I understand both sides. But looking at it as far as the game and everyone talks about growing the game, I think it’s going to be a huge step back.”

Bradley, who already had to adjust his game to a change in equipment rules several years ago when the governing bodies prohibiting an anchored putting stroke, wonders how he and his peers will be forced to adjust their games further.

“I don’t know what the ramifications are going to be with the ball—what they’re going to do, what direction they going to go,” he said. “It would have to be a complete overhaul of the equipment that I use, the shafts that I use. Yeah, I mean the amount of change that’s happened just in the course of my career is insane.

“I think we constantly get penalised for mistakes they [USGA and R&A] make. Whether if they let the ball go too far, that’s not our problem. They [are doing this] to punish not only the professional golfers, but the world of golf for something that they screwed up on. I really think it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of.”

Image: David Cannon

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Playing for the first time since undergoing fusion surgery to his right ankle after withdrawing from the Masters, Woods finished 18th in the 20-man event with a final-round 72 Sunday at Albany to complete 72 holes at 288. The key, though, was that he completed 72 holes without incident or reinjury to his right leg, which has plagued him since he badly injured it in a single-car accident in 2021.

“I’ve come a long way being a little bit rusty to like four days and knock off a lot of rust, which is great,” said Woods, who turns 48 at the end of the month. “And just the physicality of actually playing and competing again, I’ve done this in once, so it was nice to get out there with the guys and have some fun and compete and I wish I would have played a little better, but always nice.”

Woods made 19 birdies for the week but that was offset by 15 bogeys and two double bogeys. He was particularly displeased with his play on the par-5 holes, where he was three under for the week. The highlight, he said, was his ability to drive the ball. He continued to show plenty of power despite the surgery and long layoff. Among the highlights Sunday was driving the green at the 307-yard 14th hole to set up a two-putt birdie, one of five birdies on the afternoon.

“I drove it on pretty much a string all week,” he said with a big, satisfied grin. “Granted, these fairways are big. I felt like I had my ball speed up, which was nice, and I was hitting the middle of the face the entire week, which is nice. So it’s not like I have to go and try and find something the next few weeks or something going into next year; what I’ve been working on is right there and maybe just tighten up a little bit.”

Next up for Woods is his so-called “fifth major,” the PNC Championship, where Woods can ride in a cart while competing for a third time alongside his 14-year-old son Charlie.

Tiger said before the Hero World Challenge that a goal in 2024 was to play a tournament per month. At the end of the week, he felt that was still realistic – Tracy Wilcox

Then he will prepare for the 2024 season. He still believes, as he claimed in his pre-tournament press conference, that competing once a month is a realistic goal.

“I think that if you asked me right now I’m a little sore, but once a month seems reasonable,” said Woods, who had TGR executive and close friend Rob McNamara on the bag but hasn’t figured out yet who will caddie for him next year. “I think that having a couple of weeks off to recover, a week to build up, there’s no reason why I can’t get into a rhythm. It’s just a matter of getting in better shape basically. I feel like my game’s not that far off, but I need to get in better shape.

“That’s what the plan was going into next year and I don’t see why that wouldn’t change.”

Images – Tracy Wilcox

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Woods started fast with birdies on four of his first seven holes, but he couldn’t sustain the pace, struggling in the same area of the golf course where he encountered trouble during Thursday’s opening round. But a birdie on the par-three 17th hole was a soothing balm after a few scrapes, and he ended up with a somewhat satisfying two-under 70 at Albany.

“It was better than yesterday, for sure,” said Woods, 47, who played alongside Rickie Fowler, who also shot 70. “I’ve been more committed than I was yesterday. I made a few mistakes and overall the round was better, for sure. The start was better, the middle part of the round was better. I missed a couple putts there towards the end I thought would have kept the round going, and, unfortunately, it kind of stalled out a little bit.”

The rough patch came in the middle of the back nine starting with a bogey on the 13th hole. At the par-5 15th, Woods faced an approach of only 182 yards, but he found the bunker, blasted out poorly and then putted off the green back into the bunker before saving bogey with a 15-footer. He then bogeyed the 16th for the second day in a row.

At one-over 145, Woods is in 15th place in the 20-man field and trails leaders Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth by 10 strokes.

Mental fatigue? Physical fatigue? Rust? “I think it’s all of the above, and I just haven’t done it,” he replied. “I haven’t played in six months. Things are not as sharp as they normally would be. Hey, it certainly … there’s some good in there and just got to make sure that the good is more consistent than it has been.”

It was just his second competitive round since undergoing ankle fusion surgery in April after having to withdraw from the Masters. There are sure to be bumps along the way as he gets reacclimatised to tournament conditions. At least he had more reasons to smile than grimace.

“I can play at home, I can walk, walk beaches, do all those things at home, but it’s different when you’re at game speed,” Woods said. “Like I was saying yesterday, game speed’s different than home speed. You can simulate all you want at home, and I had it the best I possibly can. We played a lot of money matches at home and tried to simulate it, but it’s just different. The mind’s racing more, the anxiety, the emotions are just different than at home. You can always drop a ball at home, no big deal. Here it’s going to cost you.

“As I said to you guys in the press conference on Tuesday, this week is a great beta test to figure out what I can do, what the plan is going forward, what we’re going to do in the gym, what I need to do, and just overall just analyze what it’s like to compete and play and the things I need to strengthen and the things I need to work on in the gym to be ready for next year and the next season.”

Image: Tracy Wilcox

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