Tiger Woods all smiles as his 2018 season comes to an end
Tiger Woods finished next-to-last at the Hero World Challenge this week, but after the year he’s had he can’t be too disappointed.
By the time Tiger Woods was finishing off his round Sunday at the Hero World Challenge, the leaders were still far behind him. But there was one thing you don’t often see from Woods when he’s out of contention: a smile on his face.
Woods finished in 17th at his own tournament in the Bahamas this week, ending up 19 shots behind winner Jon Rahm. Only Hideki Matsuyama was worse than Woods in the 18-player field. Woods, however, was satisfied knowing how different his life and career are now than they were 12 months ago.
Last December when Woods arrived at the Hero World Challenge, it was his first tournament in nearly a year. His fourth back surgery had forced him to miss almost the entire 2017 PGA Tour season. The player who spent nearly 700 weeks at No. 1 in the world was outside the top 1,000 and unsure whether he’d ever be able to play golf again.
What a difference a year makes. Woods ends the 2018 season ranked 14th in the world. In September he won his first title in five years at the Tour Championship. He was also sixth at the Open Championship, and runner-up to Brooks Koepka in the PGA Championship. Despite a disappointing finish this week, Woods still looks back at the past year as a highlight of his career.
“It was an incredible year,” he told NBC after his round. “To go from where I was at this point last year, to where I’m at now, I’m just so blessed and so thankful to have had the opportunity to have everything turn my way.”
A year after thinking his career was over, Woods made 19 starts in 2018, a figure he’s only exceeded one other time since 2006. There were some stretches of inconsistency. He was a non-factor at the Masters and missed the cut at the U.S. Open. He was outside the top 20 in the first two events of the FedEx Cup playoffs. He also went pointless at the Ryder Cup. Then there was The Match last Friday, where Woods played poorly in allowing longtime rival Phil Mickelson to walk away with the $9 million prize.
Woods, though, says that’s to be expected at this point in his career. He turns 43 later this month, and admits he’s no longer capable of having his best every week.
“The desire hasn’t changed. It’s just the body is sometimes unwilling to respond to what the mind wants,” he said. “And that’s just part of the injuries I’ve had and the aging process. Trying to deal with that and compete at the same time.”
Woods’ round on Sunday mirrored his career resurgence. He was four-over on his front-nine at Albany Golf Course. On the back-nine, however, he rebounded with four birdies and finished with a one-over round of 73.
“I just always compete,” Woods said of his last nine holes.
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The Hero World Challenge is the last time Woods will tee off in 2018. He admits he never expected to play so much this year, and will likely cut back on the tournaments he enters in 2019. He isn’t scheduled to play on the PGA Tour again until the Genesis Open in February.
At least he knows there will be a 2019 season for him. At this point last year, he couldn’t say the same thing, and for that he’s more than willing to overlook a bad week and think that it was a pretty good year, after all.