As Woods prepares to host the Genesis Invitational, his response to Premier League Golf’s plans faces intense scrutinyThis week’s dreamy narrative is perfectly understandable. Should Tiger Woods, back in his native southern California, secure PGA Tour win No 83 the golf world may run out of Kleenex. Woods has a strangely patchy record at what is now the Genesis Invitational but that doesn’t matter for now; this was the first PGA Tour event he played in, as a 16-year-old in 1992. Earlier, he would visit Riviera Country Club to watch professionals he was merely hoping to emulate.This week provides a wonderful paradox where Woods is concerned. Media duties included tales of a bygone age. There was one encounter between Tiger...
A review of the golfing year features McIlroy’s disastrous start at Portrush and Hinako Shibuno’s fairytale win at the British OpenAs the freshly plundered FedEx truck disappears down the lane, not so much as a bronze centime left rattling around the back, now seems as good a time as any to take stock of the year in golf. So here are our (slightly less valuable) end-of-season prizes.Anti-climax of the year Related: Lightning strikes Tour Championship and leaves six spectators in hospital Related: Scottish golf’s biggest handicap? Its elitist clubs. But change is in the air... | Kevin McKenna Continue reading...
The 15-times major winner is missing at East Lake, raising questions over his ability to compete next seasonIt was the best of times to precede the best of times. That Tiger Woods had lived through the worst of times merely added to the cacophony of emotion.For Woods not to have qualified among the PGA Tour’s leading 30 players for this week’s season finale at East Lake will not prevent glances back to 11 months ago. It was at this Atlanta venue that Woods, memorably mobbed by giddy spectators on the 72nd fairway, delivered his first tournament victory in five years. The seal had been broken, with one of the finest sporting comebacks in sporting history complete as Woods prevailed again,...
Two years after contemplating retirement the American has eclipsed Ben Hogan’s remarkable recoveryThis one was for the sinners, one for the egotists, addicts, idolaters and fornicators, for those who have suffered, those who have recovered and all the rest too, for everyone who ever believed in second chances or who just loves a good comeback story.When Tiger Woods came here in 2010, right after his life started to fall apart, he told his old coach Hank Haney that he had decided one thing for sure: “When I play golf again, I’m not going to play for my dad or mum,” he said, or for his agent, Mark Steinberg, or his caddie, Steve Williams, or his sponsor, Nike, or for Haney...
Spaniard’s petulance, Kuchar’s thrifty touch and Holmes’s slow play sit uneasily with the public but Tiger Woods offers hopeThe World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship is an unlikely saviour for the sport. At the first staging of this tournament, in 2017, players and caddies were affected by sickness to such an extent that an emergency ward by the 18th green would have been a valid addition. The impact on last year was inevitable; Rory McIlroy gave the event a miss despite a $10m prize pot, as again did Jason Day. The tournament seen by many as a beacon of light, having prised WGC status away from the Donald Trump-owned Doral site in Miami, was floundering. Related: Fifty seconds for a one-foot putt:...