We’re not going to see Tiger Woods playing golf any time soon. But if you think we’ll never see Tiger Woods play golf again … think again.
Woods announced on Tuesday afternoon that he’s undergone surgery for a ruptured Achilles, an injury that will in all likelihood keep him out of all four majors in 2025. It’s yet another devastating blow in what’s become a late career full of them.
It would be easy to declare Woods’ career done, to say that this is it — another surgery, another season of missed majors, another lost year in a career that has precious few years left to give.
It would be easy … and it would be wrong. Tiger Woods isn’t going out like this. He’ll be back, one way or another. When he leaves the game of golf, it will be on his own terms.
This isn’t to say he’ll ever lift another trophy. Woods will almost surely end up forever three short of Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors. He’ll almost certainly remain tied with Sam Snead for most PGA Tour victories at 82. (Unless, that is, the Tour decides to strip Snead of some of his less-than-stellar tournament wins … but that’s another story.)
And yet … you wouldn’t bet your house against Woods, would you? Because just when you think he’s out, he rallies back to win the U.S. Open on a broken leg, or win the Masters one more time. Woods built his career on dominance, but he sustained it on resilience. Underestimate either one, and you’d be in the clubhouse signing your scorecard well before he was.
There was a time when the presence of Woods atop the leaderboard was enough to send the rest of the field into a soul-searching panic. If Woods was behind you, it was only a matter of time before he caught you, and if he was ahead of you, all you could do was watch as he accelerated into the distance.
Those days are long gone now. Woods hasn’t seriously contended at a tournament in half a decade. He hasn’t even finished the weekend at a major outside of Augusta since 2020. But he’s kept coming back, returning after surgeries and accidents and scandals, willing himself to get back into game shape time and time again.
Woods’ early-2000s dominance was impressive in the way the Himalayas are impressive, so massive as to be incomprehensible. His post-2009 renaissance — where he won 11 tournaments, including the 2013 Players and 2019 Masters — was flat-out astounding in its breadth and resilience. He wasn’t able to overwhelm the field anymore with power and touch; he had to rely on his singular, incomparable will. And in that way, he became more relatable — a man who had been kicked by fate, circumstance, his own body and his own shortcomings, finding the drive inside to stand up, one more time.
No one would have begrudged him had he walked away after one of his many season-ending surgeries; no one would have thought less of Woods had he decided to hang it up after his devastating 2021 car wreck. But he kept on returning, as if he couldn’t fathom what else to do with himself, any more than golf could fathom a world without Tiger Woods.
Woods has often cited his children as a reason for continuing to play, setting an example for them and wanting them to share in his glory. He targeted last year’s surgical recovery to the PNC Championship in December to be able to play alongside his son Charlie, for instance.
So there’s something strangely appropriate about the fact that one of our final images — for now — of Tiger Woods on the golf course is him calling for Charlie to toss him a chicken finger at a TGL event a couple weeks back:
(Yes, the phrase “golf course” is doing a lot of work when you’re talking about indoor golf. The point stands — the onetime Destroyer of Worlds is now a goofy Golf Dad. He’s adapted, both on and off the course.)
Yes, it stinks for golf fans — who have spent the last three years watching the game they love pull itself apart — to miss out on another chance to see the modern GOAT one more time. Woods always puts a charge into every gallery, whether he’s leading or 20 strokes back, and there’s a red-and-black hole in every major he doesn’t play. The 2025 major season won’t be the same without him stalking the fairways.
No, Tiger Woods isn’t done. He’ll come back … if only to prove that he can.
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