Tiger Woods: Spinal Surgeon on Woods’ Latest Back Surgery

Dr. Mitch Suppler, a spine specialist and surgeon, explained Tiger Woods’ latest back surgery on SiriusXM radio Inside the Ropes program with former PGA Tour players Carl Paulson and Dennis Paulson.

The surgery, according to the Associated Press, was another microdiscectomy. It was done because a disc fragment was causing pain.

Suppler first explained that a disc fragment could be any part of a disc that breaks loose and moves into a part of the spinal column and presses on a nerve. That would cause pain, he indicated.

“Fragments can happen quite a bit,” Suppler noted adding that they can “migrate into the canal where the nerves are running up or down.”

Woods apparently had the surgery just before Christmas and was up and active the next day. There are reports that he is hitting balls already.

More from PGA

What people want to know, of course, is what does this latest procedure mean for Woods’ future? The Paulsons asked him what we could expect.

Suppler had a cautious answer that didn’t have to do with the most recent surgery.

“His disc at L5-S1 ( the location of the disc). That was fused,” Suppler explained about a prior surgery. “That’s not the disc level that’s the issue. So, it is likely that it is the vertebrae above that that is now seeing the stress from the bending, the twisting in the golf swing, and may have had some injury as a result.”

L5-S1 is the lowest disc in the lower back just on top of the tailbone. So the newest problem would have to be a disc above and not below.

The fusion in one area, Suppler says, could have what he calls a cascade effect.

“It’s going to put pressure on the next disc up,” Suppler said. “So, because L5-S1 is fused, L4-5 is now getting the brunt of all the bio-mechanical stress, not only just living, but of a golf swing.”

Suppler added that he has no access to Woods’ medical records, but is basing his comments on his own experience with spinal surgery, particularly with golfers.

When asked what the expectations might be for Woods golf future, he said it’s unlikely that Woods will play 20 tournaments a year. However, Woods has not played 20 tournaments or more in a year since 2005. And some seasons, he has only played a handful due to injury or recovery from surgeries.

( Woods played 21 in 1997, 20 in 1998, 21 in 1999, 20 in 2000, 19 in 2001, 18 in 2002 and 2003, 19 in 2004, 21 in 2005, 15 in 2006, 16 in 2007, 6 in 2008, 17 in 2009, 12 in 2010, 9 in 2011, 19 in 2012, 16 in 2013, 7 in 2014, 11 in 2015, 0 in 2016, 1 in 2017, 18 in 2018, 12 in 2019, 7 in 2020.)

“He’s going to pick and choose, and he’s going to have moments where he may play well and he’s going to have moments where he doesn’t,” Suppler said.

Woods has said as much in recent years and indicated that he did not intend to play even 15 tournaments in a season. It’s been likened it to a Steve Stricker type schedule just before Stricker turned 50.

However, the good news for a potential recovery is that a microdiscectomy can be done without cutting muscles. Suppler likened it to looking at a steak or a roast, when you can see parts of the steak that you can pull apart easily. He said that the muscles can be moved out of the way instead of cut and that the muscle “folds back in” when the procedure is completed.

“It’s not uncommon that after a month of recuperation that you start increasing activity level,” Suppler said. “Tiger, aside from his back, is in tremendously good shape.”

Next. Brooks Koepka: 2021 FedEx Cup Contender or Pretender?. dark

Only one thing is certain. Tiger Woods is now a perfect 10 — surgeries, that is. Five for the back, five for the knee.

Home/PGA