Tiger Woods: The Par 3 at Augusta and Tour Media Rights

Tiger Woods suffered horrible injuries in a vehicle accident a year ago.  At his tournament, the Genesis Invitational, he told reporters that he can now walk the Par 3 at Augusta National.  However, he doesn’t know whether he will play in the Wednesday contest this year or not.

If he doesn’t play it this year, it doesn’t mean he won’t play competitive golf in the future.

“Will I come back? Yes. Will I come back and play a full schedule? No. I said that at Albany (at the Hero World Challenge in December), that will never happen again,” he insisted when discussing the state of his body these days. “Pick and choose my events, whether they’re majors or other events, I can do something like that, but come back and playing the Tour, yes, but not on a full-time basis.”

The reason is that his body can’t handle it.

He wishes he knew when he would be able to return to professional events. At this juncture, he doesn’t.

“Walking on a golf course where there’s undulations, I have a long way to go,” Woods admitted.

“I can chip and putt really well and hit short irons very well, but I haven’t done any long stuff seriously,” he said.

Long shots mean more of what he calls loading and torquing of his right leg, which he’s not able to do to his satisfaction. He said he can walk on a treadmill all day.

“Walking on a golf course where there’s undulations, I have a long way to go,” he admitted.

In addition to the leg problems, he still has to spend a lot of time before he plays “reactivating” everything in his back.  So, in the future, he’s got a multi-body-part, warm-up process.

Still, he enjoyed the PNC and being back on the golf course with Big and Little Joe LaCava, even if he was limited in what he could do.

“Being out here on Tour, you get exposed,” Tiger said about the state of his game. “You have to be fit enough to be able to do this sport at a high level. You have to be able to practice at a high level to expect to come out here and win, and I have not done any of that.”

Tiger Woods knows there’s still a long way to go before he can enter a PGA Tour event.

He wishes it would happen on his timetable instead of his body’s timetable, but he knows this is one situation where he’s not in charge.

The issue that complicates it further is that Tiger cannot walk five or six rounds of golf that would be needed in a week of play, never mind the mental stress of competition, which, usually, no player admits to having.

So competition is off the table for right now, but not forever.

Meantime, there is plenty happening in golf, particularly Phil Mickelson’s recent comments about media rights.  Woods noted that it is a discussion many players have had for some time. He said that when he first came out on Tour, they “barely” had cell phones or internet.  Now it’s different, all kinds of rights that didn’t exist previously.

“Whether it’s streaming, which didn’t exist, where do you go on that? Where does the Tour go, who owns those rights, how much do you share of that, where does it go?” he asked.

But he specifically said that he did not distrust the PGA Tour organization.

“I’ve had a great relationship with Tim ( Finchem) over the years, and I’ve had a great relationship with Jay ( Monahan) over the years,” he insisted. “Jay and I started back in ’03 in Boston, so we’ve built our relationship since then.” That was when Woods was involved in the Deutsch Bank event.

However, Tiger admitted there have been disagreements between players and the PGA Tour organization, but said there are supposed to be because the PGA Tour wants what’s best for the organization and the brand and players as a whole, while players want what’s best for them individually.

“So, are there going to be disagreements? Yes. Are there going to be concessions? Yes,” he said. “Everyone has their opinion about it, but we need to come to a collective decision.”

He cited one of the best things about being a part of the PGA Tour is that it has the best retirement plan in sports.

“We have an opportunity to play well past our playing days and still earn well over a million dollars well into our 50s where football players are done at nine years,” he added.  (He meant on average.  Not counting exceptions like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers. )

To sort out who should benefit from what rights problem, he predicted there would be give and take but that all sides would find a balance of what’s best for players and what’s best for the PGA Tour brand.