Bruised but Not Broken, Tiger Woods Vows Redemption; Reasserts ‘One Event per Month’ Goal After Masters Tragedy

Rest assured, you can spot Tiger Woods playing ‘one tournament a month’ going forward. Woods, in his 100th Masters round, carded 5-over 77 to finish at 60th on the leaderboard. Revealing his plans for the next few months, the 15-time Major champion said, “Well, this is a golf course I knew going into it, so I’m going to do my homework going forward at Pinehurst, Valhalla, and Troon, but that’s kind of the game plan.“

The 48-year-old failed to play one event each month, as he said at the 2023 Hero World Challenge. The Masters was his first competitive outing since withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational. But Woods is eager to change that and is already preparing his schedule for the next few months.

The five-time Masters champion came to Georgia for an early scouting mission. Reportedly, he played practice rounds with Justin Thomas and Fred Ridley. Tiger Woods plans to do the same for the next three major championships. “Same thing, I heard there’s some changes at the next couple sites. So got to get up there early and check them out,” Woods answered when asked about his plans for the three remaining majors.

Augusta National made a couple of changes this year. The tee box on par 5, 2nd, was moved 10 yards back to the left. While Pinehurst No. 2 will have a new grandstand and corporate boxes this year, the USGA hasn’t notified us of any changes to the course itself. Valhalla, the venue of Woods’s 2000 PGA Championship triumph, is expected to play longer than 7,458 yards in 2014. While Royal Troon submitted a plan of action for an overhaul, it was mostly to improve accessibility rather than tinker with the par 71, 7208-yard layout. Woods netted a solo ninth in the 2004 Open Championship at Troon.

Explaining further, Woods said the idea is to “just keep lifting, keep the motor going, keep the body moving, keep getting stronger, and keep progressing. Hopefully, the practice sessions will keep getting longer.” At Augusta, Woods also carded his worst major round on the moving day, shooting 10-over 82. But Woods revealed that he had plenty of positives to take with him. 

Tiger Woods assessed his Masters weekend

Woods made his 24th consecutive cut at the Masters on Friday. However, playing 23 holes in 10 hours impacted his performance the next day. Woods was carded 10-over 82 on Saturday, his third round over 80 in the Majors. The final round was a little better, especially the second nine, where he made only one bogey, saving seven pars. Overall, Woods feels there is no need to ring the alarm bells yet. 

“It was a good week. It was a good week all around. I think that coming in here, not having played a full tournament in a very long time, it was a good fight on Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, yesterday, it didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted it to. Today’s round, the way Tom is playing, I thought I had it under control. Unfortunately, I didn’t produce it,” Woods said after the final round. 

Woods showed flashes of greatness sporadically throughout the round, a brilliant chip-in birdie on Thursday, and another chip from the sand bunker on the 16th today. The key problem is still his body, which oftentimes fails him, especially in the final two rounds. That’s also why the former World No. 1 plans to double down on his training regimen.