The PNC Championship, a two-day team golf tournament that pairs major champions with a family member, allows competitors to use golf carts, unlike a typical PGA Tour event.
Yet in the event’s pro-am Friday at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla., Tiger Woods took the opportunity to walk all 18 holes.
Woods’ ability to walk the entire course opened some eyes, as he’s said in the past that it is a greater obstacle for him at this point than hitting the shots he wants to hit.
Woods, who turns 49 this month, has not played more than a handful of events in a given PGA Tour season since a single-car crash in February 2021 nearly cost him his right leg.
Friday was Woods’ first time playing golf in public since the Open Championship last July, where he missed the cut. He has since undergone another back surgery, and he elected not to play earlier this month in his foundation’s event in the Bahamas, the Hero World Challenge.
“Yeah, my leg is what it is. It’s still here. It is what it is,” Woods told reporters Friday. “But this year I struggled a lot with my back, and it’s a lot better, but I still have a long way to go. … The recovery has gotten to be the hardest part.”
Woods was asked how close he was to not playing this weekend.
“I had moments,” he said. “That was one of the reasons why I had the surgery done earlier, so that hopefully I could give myself the best chance to be with (son Charlie Woods) and be able to play. I’m not competitively good right now, but I just wanted to be able to have the experience again. This has always been one of the bigger highlights of the year for us as a family, and now we get to have that moment together again.”
Without giving any indication of where he stood for the 2025 PGA Tour season, he added that the process of getting ready for competitive golf takes him months, “but it starts with each and every day.”
“Unfortunately I’ve gone through this process a number of times,” the 15-time major champion said. “It’s frustrating. It’s hard. But I have an amazing team, amazing support. But I have to do the little things on a daily basis and away from everybody.”
The PNC Championship begins Saturday and concludes Sunday. Tiger and Charlie Woods were the runners-up in 2021 and tied for fifth last year, but they are still searching for their first win in the event.
–Field Level Media
