Tiger Woods injury: What’s next after withdrawing from Hero World Challenge?

After not playing since The Open Championship, Tiger Woods was set to return at the Hero World Challenge. Now, he’s withdrawn with an injury. 

While the PGA Tour is on hiatus until the turn of the calendar, golf fans had many reasons to eagerly await December with Tiger Woods scheduled to play in three different tournaments to end 2022 after not playing competitively since he missed the cut at St. Andrews for The Open Championship.

The first of those three events was set to be the event he hosts annually, the Hero World Challenge at Albany in the Bahamas, which tees off on Thursday, Dec. 1. On Monday, however, the 82-time PGA Tour winner dropped some bad news.

Woods released a statement on Twitter that he has been dealing with plantar fasciitis in his preparation for the Hero and, as a result, is being forced to withdraw. Here is the statement in full:

"“In my preparation and practice for this week’s Hero World Challenge, I’ve developed plantar fasciitis in my right foot, which is making it difficult to walk. After consulting with my doctors and trainers, I have decided to withdraw this week and focus on my hosting duties. My plan is still to compete in The Match and PNC Championship.”"

Given that Woods has displayed difficulty walking prior to this latest injury following his 2021 car accident that severely damaged his leg, it’s probably a safe call on his and his team’s part for him to not push it at the Hero World Challenge. However, this plantar fasciitis does raise questions about what’s next for Tiger.

Tiger Woods injury: What’s next after Hero World Challenge WD?

As mentioned by Woods, the other two events he is set to play in December are The Match, where he will team up with Rory McIlroy to face Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, and the PNC Championship, the Champions Tour event where he has played with his son Charlie in the past two years.

What’s important to note about both of those events, however, is that they will not be physically demanding on Woods’ leg and the resulting injuries from his accident or on the newly surfaced plantar fasciitis because he’ll be able to ride the course in a golf cart. So that still raises questions about what’s next beyond this December run.

By all accounts, we’ve already seen the last of Tiger Woods as a PGA Tour player who tees it up on any kind of a regular schedule given his health prior to Monday’s announcement. However, the assumption has been that he’ll still attempt to give it a go at major championships and other big events of interest to him, the next of which would be The Masters in April.

Plantar fasciitis can flare up at times but it is also an injury that can be dealt with through rest and injections to make it manageable. That’s likely the plan for Woods after playing in The Match and PNC Championship as he surely would like to gear up to play at Augusta National Golf Club in April.

That, of course, is just speculation based on the information we have. Woods has been notoriously tight-lipped in recent years, particularly with the details of his health status — hence why we found out Monday of the event that this latest ailment had cropped up.

The reality for the soon-to-be 47-year-old, though, is that he has reached a new stage of his career, one during which his health must be carefully dealt with and he must keep a less-than-rigorous schedule throughout. That was the case prior to the plantar fasciitis and will be the case moving forward now.

In the simplest terms, not much has changed outside of him now teeing it up just twice in December 2022 instead of three times.

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