While the PGA Tour season concluded in November, and next year’s tour won’t start until January, the month of December has often been highlighted by the Hero World Challenge. It is an unofficial event on the tour but is hosted by the Tiger Woods Foundation, with the namesake being the star attraction. The 2024 Hero World Challenge begins on Thursday, and while Woods will be in attendance, he won’t be competing following his latest back surgery in September.
Considering that it’s the sixth known back surgery for the 15-time major champion, the fact that Woods isn’t ready to play less than two months later doesn’t come as much of a surprise to those who’ve followed Woods’s journey from his numerous injury setbacks. However, what he said about his golfing future may have raised some eyebrows, and specifically, the unknown of when Woods will be healthy enough to compete in the game he loves.
The Hero World Challenge is a limited-field event that has just 20 golfers. Last year, Woods played in the event after a layoff of more than seven months. Of the 20 golfers, Woods finished 18th at even par and was 20 strokes behind winner Scottie Scheffler.
“I’m not tournament-sharp yet,” Woods said in his news conference at the event. “No, I’m still not there, and these are 20 of the best players in the world, and I’m not sharp enough to compete against them at this level. So, when I’m ready to compete and play at this level, then I will.”
He did reveal that his latest procedure had alleviated the pain he had radiating through his leg, which affected his performance when he did take the course. He participated in five tournaments in 2024, including the four major events, plus the Genesis Invitational, which is also hosted by his foundation. Of those five events, he missed three cuts, withdrew from one due to illness, and finished in 60th place in the other.
Those five events came after his infamous comments at last year’s Hero World Challenge when he stated he hoped to play in one tournament a month in 2024. That was clearly an overly ambitious statement, but there are several tournaments on the horizon in which he could make his return to competition. One is the PNC Championship in two weeks, an event that his son, Charlie, is set to compete in, and an event in which the elder Woods could use a cart. Woods said he’s undecided about teeing off in that tournament, which then leaves either the Genesis in February or the Masters in April as his next likeliest comeback events.
“This year, I kinda had to toss it away, and I wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be, and I didn’t play as much as I needed to going into the major championships, and I didn’t play well at them,” Woods said. “Hopefully, next year will be better. I'll be physically stronger and better. I know the procedure helped, and hopefully that I can then build upon that.”
At this stage of his career, Woods appears to be more of an ambassador and figurehead in golf, with his biggest contribution to the sport coming as he serves on the PGA Tour’s policy board and as vice chair of the PGA Tour Enterprises board. It’s those boards which are involved in discussions related to the planned merger between the tour and LIV Golf, which is owned by the Public Investment Fund.
As a high-ranking official involved in the negotiations, Woods was also asked about progress with the merger. It had a framework agreement that expired on Dec. 31, 2023, although the two sides are still communicating, and while Woods said that he thought things would have moved quicker, there is still a roadblock in the form of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), who has to review the deal to ensure it doesn’t violate any antitrust laws.
“Even if we had gotten a deal done by now, it’s still in the DOJ’s hands, but we wish we would have had something more concrete and further along than we are right now,” Woods said. “But things are very fluid, we’re still working through it, it’s happening daily. From a policy board standpoint or from an Enterprise standpoint, things are moving and they’re constructive. But yes, definitely moving.”
Even with everything he’s accomplished, there are still two major achievements in front of Woods if he can not only compete but win in official tournaments. One is Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championship victories, as Woods has been at 15 majors since claiming the 2019 Masters. A much more attainable record Woods is pursuing is sole possession of the most PGA Tour wins of all time. His 82 victories are currently tied with Sam Snead for the most ever, with Woods’s last win also being when he last slipped on the green jacket at Augusta in 2019.
