Since his February car accident, Tiger Woods through an interview has shed light on his traumatic injuries, recovery and what the future might hold.
Wood revealed that he would be choosing which events to be participating in and added that at the moment he could not participate in the competition on a full time basis.
“I think something that is realistic is playing the tour one day—never full time, ever again—but pick and choose, just like Mr.Hogan did. Pick and choose a few events a year and you play around that.”
“You practice around that, and you gear yourself up for that. I think that’s how I’m going to have to play it from now on. It’s an unfortunate reality, but it’s my reality. And I understand it, and I accept it,” Woods noted.
Tiger also noted that he was not in the position of competing with the best players in the world after his tragic accident.
“I don’t have to compete and play against the best players in the world to have a great life. After my back fusion, I had to climb Mt. Everest one more time. I had to do it, and I did. This time around, I don’t think I’ll have the body to climb Mt. Everest, and that’s OK. I can still participate in the game of golf. I can still, if my leg gets OK, I can still click off a tournament here or there. But as far as climbing the mountain again and getting all the way to the top, I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation of me,” he noted.
Woods suffered comminuted open fractures to both the tibia and the fibula in his right leg after losing control of his vehicle outside of Los Angeles on February 23.
He was rushed to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and subsequently transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he spent three weeks and faced the possibility of amputation.
“There was a point in time when, I wouldn’t say it was 50/50, but it was damn near there if I was going to walk out of that hospital with one leg. Once I wanted to test and see if I still had my hands. So even in the hospital, my friends would throw something at me. Throw me anything,” he continued.
Woods recalled a moment that he remembers very well as after the accident he was asking for a golf club to toy around with while in his hospital bed.
This was how he began a rehabilitation process that included three months in a hospital-type bed in his home. Next, a wheelchair. He then progressed to crutches, which allowed him to regain independence and move around at his own will.
“Adding that part into my day-to-day life was so rewarding because I’d been stuck in a house. Granted, it is a nice house I have built for myself, but I have not been able to do the one thing I love to do: I love to go outside and just be outside. Sometimes I just crutch and lay on the grass for an hour because I want to be outside. Missing the contact of a golf ball hit properly is one of the better feelings,” Woods continued.
His rehabilitation has been frustrating with ups and downs. Wood s pointed out that he expected to progress faster than he did and, in the dark days shortly after the accident, he says he reverted to a mentality he learned from his father.
“This is where dad’s teaching came into play being in the military and being SF [special forces]. Any SF operator can attest to this—you do not know how long a firefight is going to take. It could last five seconds or five hours and some could go on for days at a time. With that in mind, you do not know when the end is so that is the hard part. How do you get through that? One of my dad’s ways of getting through that was live meal-to-meal. I just shortened the windows of, oh, this is going to be nine months of hell, so It's just two or three hours. If I can repeat these two to three hours at a time. Next thing you know it adds up, it accumulates into weeks months and to a point where here I am talking to you and walking into a room,” Tiger revealed.
Once he was cleared to practice putting, Woods lengthened the famous Scotty Cameron Newport 2 putter that he used to win 14 of his 15 majors, for he could not bend over the same way he used to.
Next came chipping competitions with his son, Charlie, and eventually clearance to begin very limited full-swing practice, however Woods suggests he is nowhere near ready to compete on the PGA Tour.
“I have so far to go I’m not even at the halfway point. I have so much more muscle development and nerve development that I must do in my leg. At the same time, as you know, I have had five back operations. So I am having to deal with that. So as the leg gets stronger, sometimes the back may act up. It is a tough road. But I am simply happy to be able to go out there and watch Charlie play, or go in the backyard and have an hour or two by myself with no one talking, no music, no nothing. I just hear the birds chirping. That part I’ve sorely missed.”
Woods said the prospect of playing with his 12-year-old son has motivated him throughout the process.
“I went to golf tournaments to watch him play, and I’m looking at some of these scores he’s shooting and I said, '' How the hell are you shooting such high scores?” I gotta go check this out.”
Tiger Woods also revealed that Messages of support and encouragement have poured into his phone and inbox since the accident including a call from the president, which Woods cannot recall without laughing about hearing “the White House on line 1.”
He also expressed deep gratitude for the way the golf community has embraced him. A number of PGA Tour players have visited Woods at different stages of his recovery.
“The Thomases and the Woodses are like family, JT is like the brother I never had, and Charlie is like the little brother that JT never had,” he noted.
Woods will make his first public appearance since the accident at this week’s Hero World Challenge, a 20-man tournament in the Bahamas that benefits his foundation.
“There is a lot to look forward to, a lot of hard work to be done, being patient and progressing at a pace that is aggressive but not over the top. Obviously, when I get in the gym and I get flowing and the endorphins get going, I want to go, go, go.”
“That’s how I’ve been able to win so many tournaments. But then again, everyone reminds me at what cost? Look at you now. Pre-accident I was what? Ten surgeries. That is just the wear and tear of doing my sport, of just trying to push it to win everything I possibly can. To win every single tournament I played in, I would do everything I possibly could. Like any sport, there is a cost to it. There’s a cost of doing business and unfortunately, for sportsmen and sportswomen, injuries are a part of it,” Woods highlighted.