Tiger Woods On This Week’s The Masters: “I Feel Like I’m Going To Play”

Tiger Woods, just 14 months past a horrific car accident in Los Angeles that nearly cost him his leg, said Tuesday that he is aiming to play at this week’s The Masters tournament, which would mark the golf icon’s return to competitive play.

Woods, a five-time Master champion, and said today in a press conference that he would play a final practice round Wednesday before making a final decision, but that he is intending to play in the major, which begins Thursday.

“As of right now, I feel like I’m going to play,” he told the media after spending time in Augusta National practice area (rain limited access to the course today). He told the media that he would make a final determination after a nine-hold practice round tomorrow.

Woods had said Sunday that it would be a “game-time decision” on playing in what would be his first tournament since November 15, 2020 — the final round of The Masters. Three months later, on February 23, 2021 while still recovering from back surgery, he was travelling at a high rate of speed when crashed his SUV near Pacific Palisades in L.A., sending it down an embankment. He suffered multiple leg fractures, and later told Golf Digest that “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.”

He has been working to return ever since, including playing recently in a pro-am with his son Charlie. As early as November he had said he had a “long way to go” in his recovery before he would consider returning.

The news of Wood in the lineup would be most welcome to ESPN and CBS, which televise the tournament. Woods, considered by some to be the greatest golfer in history with 15 major wins, is a ratings magnet when he steps on any course but especially Augusta, where he has won often in spectacular fashion and has finished in the top five 12 times in 23 appearances.

He is currently tied with Sam Snead for the PGA Tour record for wins (82).

The Masters runs April 7-10.