Tiger Woods earlier this week at Augusta National.
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Psst…have you heard? Tiger Woods has every intention to play in the 2022 Masters. He even has a tee time — a 10:34 Thursday morning date with Louis Oosthuizen and Joaquin Niemann. It’s a lot to wrap your head around, given the horrifying condition in which he found himself just 14 months ago alongside a Los Angeles roadway. Would Woods walk again? Would he swing a club again? Would he compete again? Yes, yes and yes, we learned. And now, he is readying to play the Masters again.
The next big question: Can he win again? And should you bet on him to do so? Here’s some fodder to help inform your decision.
3 reasons to bet on Tiger Woods at the 2022 Masters
1. Tiger believes he can win
Among the consistent themes in Tiger’s career: He doesn’t just show up to events on a lark, with distant hopes of winning. He’ll enter a field only if he believes in his core that he can play at a high level and win. That was true at the 2010 Masters, when he returned post-scandal — facing more scrutiny than any athlete in history — to tie for 4th. It was true in 2019, when he stunned the world by winning his fifth green jacket. And it is true this week, where less than 24 hours before his scheduled first round tee time, it still feels inconceivable that Woods is playing.
On Tuesday, Woods was asked point blank, “Do you think you can win the Masters this week?”
Tiger Woods says he’s playing the Masters with exactly one thing in mind
“I do,” Woods said.
His betting odds are the longest he’s ever faced at the Masters: around 50-1. That puts him in the same camp as the likes of Tony Finau, Tyrrell Hatton and Paul Casey. By comparison, Woods came into the 2019 Masters around 15-1.
2. He’s in his happy place
Augusta National is as close to a home game for Woods as any course this side of Medalist can provide. Five wins. Fourteen top-10s. Nary a single missed cut. In 90 career Masters rounds, his scoring average is a staggering 70.87. This course brings out the best in him — his shotmaking, his short game, his imagination. There’s little reason to doubt that won’t be the case for Woods again this week.
And did you see the size of the crowds that greeted Woods on Monday? He was like Jeter at Yankee Stadium, Favre at Lambeau and Steph at the Chase Center — all rolled into one. The galleries alone might will Woods into contention this week.
But roars can’t quell his pain, you say? Perhaps, but Woods is accustomed to playing through significant discomfort. It’s become part of his M.O.
As he noted on Tuesday: “My back surgeries that I’ve had before and the stuff I had to play through, even going back to the U.S. Open when my leg was a little bit busted, those are all times that I can draw upon where I was successful, how I’ve learned to block things out and focus on what I need to focus on.”
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3. He still has all the shots
Woods has already proven this. Did you watch him and Charlie at the PNC? No one is suggesting the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes is Augusta National, but those two rounds in Orlando showed that Woods still has plenty of speed in his driver, launch in his irons and touch and feel in his wedge game. By all accounts, he has continued to exhibit those qualities in early-week practice sessions at Augusta National.
“I’ve played several practice rounds with [Tiger],” Fred Couples said on his SiriusXM show Tuesday. “He is never ever out there to kind of go through the motions. So I knew it was game on and then he stiffed an iron and I’m not gonna go over every hole because, you know, I said that he drove it with JT a lot of times. He bombed one off No. 8 and … Tiger hit some kind of 5-wood on up there 10, 12 feet from the hole. So he had plenty of length, plenty of length.”
Added Cameron Davis, who played a few holes with Woods on Sunday: “He’s hitting it far enough to play the holes the way you need to play them. I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t be able to put rounds together out here.”
Four rounds of competitive golf. Seventy-two holes. That’s all Woods needs to endure. From what we’ve seen and heard so far this week, incredibly it doesn’t feel like too big an ask. Like Woods’ chances to contend but not to win? You can get him at +450 to finish in the top 10, or at +145 to make the cut.
3 reasons not to bet on Tiger Woods at the 2022 Masters
1. Augusta National is no walk in the park
A year ago, our Rachel Bleier (now of the USGA) tracked exactly how taxing Augusta National is to walk. Armed with a Fitbit, she strolled all 18 holes and came back with these stats:
Total steps: 9,837
Average heart rate: 129 bpm
Total calories: 829
Total miles: 3.71
Total floors: 50
Those 50 floors, Bleier wrote, are “the equivalent of climbing to the top of the Washington Monument, or about two-thirds of the way up the 77-floor Chrysler Building, in New York City.”
How tough a walk is Augusta National? To find out, we tracked every step, flight and calorie burned
Does Woods have that in him for four rounds, plus however many practice holes he ends up playing? That is the question of the 2022 Masters. Sure, he may be able to endure whatever pain results, but if Woods’ leg(s) give out, he may have no choice but to surrender. Remember, the guy has a rod in his tibia and screws in his foot and ankle. There’s more technology in his body than there is in his golf bag.
“Walking is the hard part,” Woods said Tuesday. “This is normally not an easy walk to begin with. Now given the conditions that my leg is in, it gets even more difficult.
“I’ve been in worse situations and played and won tournaments. Now, I haven’t been in situations like this where I’ve had to walk and endure what I’m going to try and endure, that’s going to be different.”
After a round or two or three, it’s possible his body could say no mas.
2. He hasn’t played a PGA Tour event in a year and a half!
Woods has a way of staying in the headlines, whether or not he’s playing, which has perhaps obscured the fact that he hasn’t made an official PGA Tour start since the 2020 Masters, 17 months ago. Woods closed that week with a wild 76 that could have been far worse if not for an inspired five-birdies-in-six-holes run to cap his round. That was the last time we saw Woods in action in an official 72-hole competition.
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Putting the injuries aside, how will he handle such a long layoff from the heat of this level of play? We don’t know. He’s the fiercest competitor the game has ever seen, but you still can’t blame the guy if he needs a round or two to recalibrate to the intense grind of Tour-level golf.
3. At some point the magic will expire
It’s easy to think Tiger Woods will keep awing us forever, that his self-belief alone will be enough to carry him to victory. Sadly, that can’t be true. He’s 46, and in a surgically repaired body that is nothing short of a modern marvel. Only Phil Mickelson (50) and Julius Boros (48) have won majors at a more advanced age. The end of Woods’ remarkable run surely is nigh. But like trying to sell a stock at its peak, it’s hard to know exactly when that moment will come.
Of his ability to compete, Woods said Tuesday, “There will be a day when it won’t happen, and I’ll know when that is.”
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