Tiger Woods remembers his first PGA Championship, reveals surgery talk with Peyton Manning

Tiger Woods heads into the PGA Championship with a laser focus on chasing his 16th major, just one month after he finally captured No. 15. He took some time in his press conference Tuesday to look back at his first PGA, his preparation for Bethpage, and how he’s adapting this comeback after another great from the football world.

Tiger Woods recalled playing his first PGA Championship in 1997, 22 years ago this summer.

“My first PGA Championship, being at Winged Foot, is probably the most difficult one,” he explained. “The golf course was everything I thought it was and more. It was difficult. It was hard. You couldn’t have had a more fairy-tale ending with Davis (Love III) holing that putt with his mom there.”

He called it a fantastic week, although he said it was unfortunate that he didn’t play well enough to contend. It was two years after that, in 1999 at Medinah Country Club, where Woods captured his first PGA, defeating a young Sergio Garcia by a single stroke.

"“My narrative spans 20 years now,” Woods began. “If you look at most of the players or the players that have had the most success on Tour, you’re not measured by like an NFL football player when you get in the Hall of Fame after nine years. If you played out here nine years, you haven’t really done that well. You’re measured in decades. Arnold Palmer played in 50 straight Masters. It’s just done differently.”"

He also mentioned that because of career longevity, there’s often a chance for older golfers to play with those much younger.

“A neat thing about this championship here is that when Jack (Nicklaus) played in his final PGA in 2000, I played with him,” Woods recalled. “He said he played with Gene Sarazen in his final PGA. So the fact that golf can span nearly, what, 60, 70 years and playing careers, that’s what makes it so special.”

Sarazen was the first golfer to win the career grand slam. Only five have done it.  The other four are Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods.

However, this year Woods may have produced an all time-career highlight with his victory at the Masters.

“It was very different. I hadn’t won in a long time there,” Woods said to media at the PGA Championship on Tuesday morning. “I mean, it was so different as a whole, you know, because we teed off in threesomes. There was a two-tee start. We went off early.

“These are things that have never happened in Augusta’s history. We could have easily got in a quick 18 after the ceremony.”

After that tournament, he needed to rest and recover.

“The only other time where I’ve taken four weeks off prior to major championships is going from the British Open to the PGA,” he noted.

He said his mind and body weren’t ready to go at Quail Hollow after the Masters.

"“To be honest with you, I wasn’t ready yet to start the grind of practicing and preparing and logging all those hours again,’ he explained. “I was feeling good in the gym, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to log in the hours.”"

However, the extra time allowed him to recover and prepare for the PGA Champoinship.

"“That’s going to be the interesting part going forward. How much do I play and how much do I rest,” he suggested. “I know that I feel better when I’m fresh. The body doesn’t respond like it used to, doesn’t bounce back quite as well, so I’ve got to be aware of that.”"

Somehow, Woods will need to find a way to play a minimum of 15 events structured around what we can only presume is his plan to challenge the Nicklaus record of 18 majors.

He compared his return to golf to Peyton Manning’s return to football after neck surgery.  The two played at Medalist and Woods asked Manning how his neck was feeling.  Not so great came the answer.  Yet Manning figured out a way to play well enough to win a Super Bowl and be MVP.

“So just because someone doesn’t have the strength to do something, he’s going to figure out a different way, and that’s what we were talking about when we played,” Woods revealed.

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Woods also compared what the surgeries meant to each one.

“I don’t have a fastball. He can’t zip the ball into those tight little windows or in — he has to anticipate more. He has to do more work in the film room. I had to do more work on managing my game, my body, understanding it, what I can and cannot do, shots that I see I could pull off or better save it for another day. And more than anything, trying to figure out how to be explosive day in and day out,” Woods said..

This was a big hurdle to leap for someone who had been able to make a golf ball do exactly what he wanted it to do for decades.

Now, he’s in his second year with post back surgery and still figuring it out.

“I think I’ve done a lot of the legwork and the hard work already, trying to find my game over the past year and a half. Now I think it’s just maintaining it,” he explained. “I know that I feel better when I’m fresh. The body doesn’t respond like it used to, doesn’t bounce back quite as well, so I’ve got to be aware of that.”

That doesn’t mean he won’t be competitive this week.  He has challengers in Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and others, but Woods  has he kind of confidence that winning a recent major championship can bring. And he’s already won  a major on this golf course, the 2002 U.S. Open.