Tiger Woods: “If I put myself there, then I know I can win”

As Tiger Woods prepares to turn the page on the 2018 PGA TOUR season, he has more positives to build on than just about anyone thought was possible. And he knows that if he can keep on the pace he’s on, he’s far from done winning on the highest level.

Tiger Woods is optimistic about 2019.  While he’s in his 40s now, he doesn’t think that’s a hindrance. He knows a select group of golfers have had success at that point in their careers, like Vijay Singh, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead.

“I feel I now have a chance to do something in my 40s.  It’s just a matter of doing it,” he said to media at the Hero World Challenge. “To put myself back in the last two major championships with a legitimate chance to win the tournament, you know, that gives me a lot of confidence going forward, the fact that I put myself there.  If I put myself there, then I know I can win it.”

At the beginning of 2018, that wasn’t a given.

Woods couldn’t plan a schedule because he didn’t know how he would perform. Then, because he played well enough, he ended up getting almost no rest at all down the stretch.

"“I was not physically prepared to play that much golf at the end of the year,” he admitted. “I had taken days off here or there, tournaments off, just trying to conserve energy and making sure my body is still good. I didn’t want to hurt anything. But I ended up playing seven out of nine to end the year.”"

Since the FedExCup Playoffs began, many PGA Tour players have played that kind of schedule in late July, early August and September.  But Woods was coming off his fourth back surgery. Compounding the intense schedule was the weather.

“It’s one of those years, you guys have been out here long enough, it has never been this hot. Every single tournament, it was just stifling,” he noted.  “It was just hard for me to maintain my strength and my weight through all that.”

Woods said he was exhausted by the time he got to the Ryder Cup but added that he had one additional day to recover with the Ryder Cup starting on a Friday.  It was plain to see that he was burned out.  There was not enough recovery time for him. It was probably not enough for everyone else, either.

Now, looking toward 2019, he’s hoping to avoid some of the schedule packing that happened last July, August and September.

“The only thing set in stone is I’m playing Genesis and the four majors. Other than that, we are still taking a look at it as far as what is — what is too much,” he explained. “Seven of the last nine to end my season was too much.”

In fact, it was so much too much that Woods did not even celebrate his Tour Championship victory until after the Ryder Cup when family, friends and several of the area pros showed up at his restaurant and threw him a surprise party.

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“It’s become kind of our, I guess, Jupiter tradition now.  All the guys, when guys win, we go there to celebrate,” he noted. “Finally, they get to celebrate one of my wins.”

As Woods looks back at the most recent season, the victory at the Tour Championship stands out as his best memory, but he admitted that taking the lead at The Open Championship was a huge step in the right direction.

“I know I was mocked a little bit for my game plan, with the media and some of the people outside of the game, but I was playing my own game, and my game plan was to put myself there with a chance and win the golf tournament.  And I did that. I just didn’t win,” he explained.

With the first four of the 2019 season’s biggest tournaments at sites where Woods has already won, The Players, the Masters, the PGA at Bethpage Black and the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, there is no doubt that he has good feelings going into those tournaments.  However, just because he has won at all those locations, it doesn’t mean he’s a lock to win again.  This year, though, he’ll be more of a favorite than in the last half decade.

“There’s literally a big event every single month, so physically I’ve got to be in better shape than I was last year to be able to handle that because last year was a moving target,” he acknowledged.  “Next season’s different because of what I’ve gone through this year.”

It’s also different because of the massive schedule changes on the PGA Tour starting in March with The Players, which occurs during St. Patrick’s week, followed by the Masters, four weeks later, followed by the PGA, five weeks later and the U.S. Open, four weeks after that.  It will be a challenge for every golfer to figure out the best schedule before and after each big tournament.

Many tournaments are out of the order they have had for the last 12 years since the beginning of the FedExCup Playoffs. Certainly, the schedule has changed massively since Woods turned pro in 1996.

The big unknown at the end of 2019 is whether or not Woods will become the second playing captain in the history of the Presidents Cup. However, that decision is 12 months away. Hale Irwin was the first playing captain in 1994.

“There are a lot of changes that can happen points-wise,” Woods noted. “The guys can play their way on to the team, off the team, me being one of them.”

Irwin, Woods noted, had made the team on points.  However, Woods could always be picked, not just by himself, but by the team.

"“If I make the team on points, yes, I’ll play,” Woods explained. “Now, if I don’t make it on points, then it’s up to myself, my vice captains and the rest of the players who are already on the team, who is the best suited to play. If we find — if we think that it’s someone else, then I don’t play. It will be a team decision on who are the next four picks.”"

The Presidents Cup is not played until next December. It will be held in Australia, where, in 1998, the International team defeated the U.S. squad 20.5 to 11.5.