Tiger Woods' Agent Responds to Firestorm of Speculation After He Backs Out of Tournament He Was Expected To Play
At 43 years old and with a long history of injuries taking him out of tournaments as far back as his early 30s, Tiger Woods is known as a fragile old cat.
This time, however, reports of his injuries may be greatly exaggerated.
After winning the Masters earlier in April, Woods went to new partner GolfTV’s headquarters and appeared to be having difficulty getting around, walking gingerly and moving decidedly slow on his feet.
The champ is here… pic.twitter.com/72k3Y6aUSV
— GOLFTV (@GOLFTV) April 25, 2019
While fans have a tendency to analyze every second of athlete video like it’s the Zapruder film, it doesn’t take a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist to tell you that is not the gait of a man for whom all is well with his joints.
Throwing gasoline on those embers and creating a raging firestorm was Woods’ subsequent decision to pull out of next week’s Wells Fargo Championship, a tournament people expected him to play.
The stagecoach stop would be a perfect tune-up for May’s PGA Championship at Bethpage Black. Woods has won at Quail Hollow, where the Wells Fargo is held, and it is a course that makes an excellent test bed for strategies that could later be carried to the major.
So, fans concluded, Woods must be direly injured and we’re back to the bad old days where the Old Tiger would come out for one tournament on one weekend before Father Time took up the marionette strings once more.
Tiger’s agent, Mark Steinberg, quickly got out the fire extinguisher and sought to put out the rumors.
Speaking to Bob Harig of ESPN, Steinberg said, “Nobody should lose their mind over this.”
He said winning the Masters took a lot out of Woods both physically and mentally.
“He’s still digesting and appreciating what happened two weeks ago. Honestly, he’s just not ready to play right now,” Steinberg said. “Look back at the transcripts from late last year and early this year, he’s not going to play as much. He’s just going to be smart about it.
“There’s a huge difference between being hurt and being sore. He’s sore after most tournaments he plays. He requires some downtime and doesn’t feel he has enough time to get ready for next week. And he regrets that he’s not going to be there.”
Woods himself, interviewed by GolfTV as part of that content-partnership announcement, reinforced what his agent said to Harig.
“Now the quick turnaround to the PGA is just a month away,” Woods said Thursday. “And so that’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking back in my past, and looking at how did I do it in 2000 at the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA [tournaments he won]? Those were quick turnarounds, one month each. What did I do? Having that positive Rolodex to revert back to is going to help.
“Also, I want to enjoy this. But also down in the back of my mind thinking, ‘You know what, I have another major in about a month.’ The prep starts. I can mentally prep for this. I don’t really want to do too much right now. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m willing to put in the hours yet and do the dirty stuff to get the body ready, to put in all the hours of hitting golf balls and putting. I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend.”
Woods sounds like a man coming to know his limits, and if it takes skipping a tune-up tournament to focus purely on the PGA Championship, it sounds like that’s Woods’ entire focus.
It doesn’t answer the question of why he walked like a robot with rusty joints in that GolfTV video, but fans can at least take comfort in knowing that Woods isn’t about to have a full physical breakdown again.
Last year at Quail Hollow, Woods finished 53rd after trying to play it immediately after the Masters. It seems Woods has no interest in duplicating that dubious feat.
“I played a little bit too much last year because I kept trying to qualify for World Golf Championship events and the [FedEx Cup] playoffs,” Woods said following his Masters victory. “The playing schedule doesn’t change; I’m going to play a little bit less than I did last year. Again, just play in the tournaments I do play in, I’ll be fully invested and committed to playing and trying to win.”
We’ll find out at Bethpage whether Woods’ strategy is the right one, and we’ll find out whether the video was just a man in his 40s recovering from a tough tournament or his body really is about to fall victim once again to the rigors of his sport.
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