Tiger Woods: Insane wake-up calls helping prep for The Open?

Tiger Woods faces a major challenge at the Open Championship, but he’s putting in the work to be ready to chase No. 16.

Tiger Woods couldn’t have enjoyed a better start to the 2019 major championship season. After winning the Masters in April, he proved he’s still got what it takes to succeed on the game’s biggest stages. But as he prepares to take on the Open Championship, he needs to take his preparation to another level.

Sure, there are doubters out there. I’ve questioned his decisions to not play much at all between the majors – the Memorial Tournament was his only non-major start since Augusta, and he’s still been battling his rhythm a bit in that period.

That’s easy for me, an onlooker with a keyboard and a double-digit handicap, to say, right? But when a three-time major winner jumps in, maybe it carries a bit more clout. Enter Padraig Harrington, a two-time Open Champion and an outspoken voice in European golf. He says that he’d be a “basket case” if he didn’t play the week ahead of a major, much less a whole month.

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"“I personally think if you’re serious about winning the Open you’ve got to be playing tournament golf at least before it,” Harrington said. “You’d rather be playing links golf and being in a tournament than just [playing] on your own, so if you’re serious about trying to win the Open you should be playing at least one, if not two, of the events running into it.”"

So what’s a GOAT contender like Tiger Woods to do? Well, he may not be playing tournament golf, but don’t let that fool you into thinking he’s not serious about preparing in his own way for Royal Portrush.

Woods took to Nike’s Instagram page over the weekend – 1 A.M. Eastern on Monday to be specific – to announce to the world that he’s getting work in while most of the rest of the country is sleeping in order to be ready for the time change. He seems way to excited for that hour of the day, but I guess that’s the kind of hype you get when you wake up and remember that you’re still Tiger Woods.

Here’s the catch that I have to wonder about, though. I know it’s a week early, but maybe just going to Northern Ireland a bit early would work just as well? Hey, call me crazy, but if TW is getting eight good hours each night, that means he’s going to bed at 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I get that it’s Florida, but my man is only 43, not 93.

I’m not going to go as far as Harrington did in questioning Tiger’s commitment to winning; it’s obvious that he still believes he can win every time he tees it up, but the way things work leading up to the event have changed dramatically.

Maybe he’s just saving himself for a non-stop closing stretch on the PGA TOUR? Or perhaps he, like the rest of us, is still trying to figure out what this “new normal” really looks like? Dealing with maintaining his physical condition and playing the biggest events in a condensed schedule is no easy task.

At the end of the day, as much as we all want to see Tiger Woods playing more tournament golf, we’d be lying to ourselves if we said we’d be okay with him playing and not contending for wins and majors. If this is what it takes to get him ready, then I’m here for it. Let’s just hope that makes our early-morning wake-up calls next week worth the wait.