TIGER WOODS ADMITS he has exceeded most of his goals for 2018 during his latest comeback to the sport of golf.
The 14-time Major winner came close on two occasions to adding to that tally and having reconstructed his swing after multiple back surgeries, Woods says he’s happy with where his game is right now.
“The beginning of the year was such an unknown, I didn’t know if I would be able to make it to Florida and to play the Florida Swing,” he said ahead of this weekend’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
“I look at this year more as I’ve exceeded a lot of my expectations and goals because so much of it was an unknown.”
The 42-year-old returns to the Tour Championship for the first time since 2013 and more than a decade after his last win here in 2007, where he claimed victory by eight strokes over Mark Calcavecchia and Zach Johnson.
Woods knows that times have moved on since then, but recognized just how far he has come since the days when he couldn’t get out of bed due to back pain.
“Well, the win category doesn’t compare to some of the years I’ve had where I’ve won eight or nine times in a year. But to have come off the last few years of inactivity and to be able to have qualified for East Lake and to be as consistent as I’ve been – to have put together a game from pretty much nothing – that’s something I’m very proud of.
“So, it’s not going to rank up there as one of my top seasons because I didn’t win eight or nine times in a season; I didn’t win two to three Majors in a year.
But to have accomplished what I’ve accomplished and to have gotten through what I’ve gotten through to get back to this point is something I’m very proud of.”
Woods rightly pointed out that what defined his season was not the fact that he could make it to the first tee week after week, but his ability to compete at the elite level and bring the best out of the field.
“I would have to alter my swing a bit, alter my equipment a bit, but I would figure out a way to do it. I just needed the rounds.
“In order to get rounds I needed to be physically fit and healthy enough to do it, and I felt pretty comfortable to be able to add a tournament [to my schedule]. So that added a couple extra days of competitive play that I hadn’t accounted for, and so it started early in the year that I could actually do this.
“I just needed to keep my body strong, keep it moving, and eventually I would find a game that could contend and that eventually would lead to wins.”
Questions will continue to hang over Woods following the completion a first full season under his belt for a number of years and the fact that he will also be part of the US Ryder Cup team that travels to Le Golf National in Paris at the end of the month in the hopes of making it back-to-back victories over the Europeans.
These questions, inevitably, will be about his back and how the strain of a full season will impact on his fitness for the following year. Woods agrees that he too can’t put the thought of a return to the sidelines out of his mind.
“There are certain shots I still think about it. More than anything, I just feel it. I’ll never be as flexible as I used to be. I can’t. It’s not moving. And so there are things that I’m limited by.
“I get reminded every day when I wake up in the morning that this is not what it used to be. But it’s a hell of a lot better than it’s been the last few years.”
Action gets underway at East Lake on Thursday, with Woods teeing off at 5.30pm Irish time.
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