It seems the time has come. Or at least it’s dreadfully close. After surviving the wrath of multiple injury-induced struggles in his professional career, the all-powerful Tiger Woods’s next stop seems to be the Senior Tour or so can be implied from Padraig Harrington’s recent revelation.
Addressing his recent interaction with the 48-year-old, Padraig Harrington recently revealed as per Golf Week, “He’d love to win that Grand Slam and get some of the other senior majors on his CV. I saw him at the course (during the PNC Championship), and we were just crossing paths, and he laughed at me. I won’t say exactly what he said, but the gist of it was that he couldn’t wait to get out and beat me.”
After all, the PGA Tour Champions’ wishes of having Tiger Woods compete in their events are only two years away when he will finally become eligible to partake in the U.S. Senior Open at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio. Woods will likely do all it takes when he finally gets the chance to swing his way through the Senior Tour’s most important event. A win at Scotio will give him a chance to break a tie of nine USGA national championships with Bobby Jones.
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It seems that the 15x major winner has finally taken Jack Nicklaus’s piece of advice. While the Golder Bear opines that Woods does not have it in himself to break his record of 18 major championship wins due to his struggle with injuries, he surely has a shot to usher in a new Tiger era at the Senior Tour. Nicklaus had once said, “I think Tiger will play the senior tour. He’d be able to get in a cart, and he’ll absolutely kill everybody.”
With the use of golf carts allowed and his injury-related hurdles curbed, glory on the Champions Tour will follow for Woods. If Harrington’s words are to be believed, it seems this new Tiger era is not so far-fetched anymore. Anything is possible when you are Tiger Woods. The 82-time PGA Tour winner’s entry into the Senior Tour could drive a never seen before influx of audiences to its viewership, and most likely land it a slot on TV on potentially the likes of NBC and Golf Channel. With all that Woods brings to the table, surely the 50-year age limit could’ve been lowered for him if he so wished.
Could Tiger Woods’s 2.0 era have ushered earlier?
PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady even remarked once, “Unless Tiger tells me he’d play right now. (If that’s the case), I’ll lower the age tomorrow.” Woods, however, planned on staying longer on the PGA Tour as he wanted things to be fair and rejected this special early entry. “No, I’m not ready, I want to follow in the same footsteps as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Bernhard Langer,” said Woods. However, in recent times, Woods has been hinting that he is looking forward to stepping into this previously unimaginable end of golf.
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Happy 48th birthday, @TigerWoods!
In two years, he’ll be eligible for the Champions Tour. pic.twitter.com/AgsPYAHuyW
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) December 30, 2023
Woods remarked, at the 2021 Hero World Challenge as he neared his 46th birthday, “Four more years until I get a cart.” Even at the pre-Masters press conference, he was questioned about using a golf cart to which he said, “I’ve got three more years, where I get the little buggy and be out there with Fred (Couples). But until then no buggy.” A ray of hope that Miller Brady and Co. seem to have hinged on tightly.
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Describing his plans, Brady detailed, “We’ve had conversations at the annual meetings with all of our tournaments about it. You know, you hear comments from time to time about how he can’t wait to have a golf cart. He has a conversation with Steve Stricker or Ernie Els or some of these other guys. You know, they’ll come back and tell me they’ll say he’s looking forward to it, which is great. What does that mean? I have no illusions that he’s going to come out here and play 15 times. If he plays four times, that would be fantastic, if he plays 10 times that would be even better.”
With Harrington’s new affirmation it seems the workload might have increased for Brady and his team, after all, the transition seems closer than ever before, and from the looks of it, PGA Tour Champions cannot wait for this new milestone.