Will Tiger Woods Win On The PGA Tour Again?

Tiger Woods is a phenomenal sportsperson who has routinely defied the perceived possible through an amateur and professional playing career spanning 35 years. From winning three straight U.S. Junior Amateur Champs, to winning the U.S. Open on a broken leg, to winning the 2019 Masters after 11 years outside the Major winner’s circle, he has consistently proven doubting commentators and journalists wrong.

Experience would suggest that stating in print or on air that Tiger Woods can’t or won’t go on to do something is almost a guarantee that he will go on to do it.

This is a no-lose situation for me then because I would love to see Tiger break out of the tie with Sam Snead for PGA Tour victories (82 of them) and put another on his CV, but I really can’t see him doing it.

Even Tiger isn’t invincible

Tiger will be 47 at the end of this year. Age alone won’t prevent him from winning again – The joint-leading PGA Tour winner Sam Snead was 52 when he won the 1965 Greater Greenboro Open. More recently, Davis Love III won in his 50s back at the Wyndham in 2015 and Phil Mickelson was nearly 51 when he won the 2021 PGA Championship.

But Tiger’s body has been through a simply incredible amount of trauma over the years. He’s had so many surgeries on his back and his legs that it’s very difficult to put the exact figure on how many times he’s gone under the knife. After the horrific car crash he survived back in 2021, doctors weren’t even sure he would walk again, let alone play golf. The fact he managed to make the cut at Augusta this year, and play at St Andrews, showed incredible resilience from the great champion.

He will continue to recover from those injuries but playing golf at the very highest professional level just puts too much strain on the body. Even a player with the innate ability of Tiger needs competitive rounds under the belt to be at the very peak of his powers. At best, he will likely only be able to pick and choose tournaments and it’s extremely difficult to be match-sharp without match practice.

Could Tiger do as Will Zalatoris has suggested and seek a buggy exemption? He could try to do that but would he? I very much doubt it.

Tiger skills

No player in the history of golf has possessed or perfected such a wide array of golfing skills as Tiger Woods. If fit, it wouldn’t matter about the troop of youngsters out there today demonstrating a mesmerising combination of power and accuracy week in, week out on the main Tours. If he was in shape, Tiger would find a way to beat them – even if he is approaching 50. Unfortunately, as we saw at The 150th Open this year as he made that tearful journey up the 18th hole of the Old Course, it just doesn’t look like his body will let him take on that challenge.

To win on the PGA Tour, you need to be absolutely on top of your competitive strokeplay game and in the right place physically. It doesn’t look like Tiger will be able to get into the right place physically to get to the top of his competitive strokeplay game. Simple as that.

Tiger has defied the odds and all but defied medical science through an absolutely outstanding career. We’ll see him play again and we’ll see him win events again but not, I think, on the PGA Tour where the level of physicality required is too high. I hope he proves me wrong.