Tiger Woods has had a setback with his back and revealed on Tuesday that he recently underwent a fifth operation to start him from the year until after the West Coast swing at the PGA Tour.
Woods will not play next week at the Farmers Insurance Open in Torrey Pines, which he won seven times, most recently in 2013. He also won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, which will host the U.S. Open again in June.
He will also miss the Genesis invitation on February 18-21 at Riviera, where he will serve as tournament host.
In a statement from its TGR Foundation, whatever Woods tweeted, he did not say when he underwent the microdissetomy operation. It was to remove a disc fragment under pressure that gave him nerve pain during the PNC Championship last month that he played with 11-year-old boy Charlie.
According to the statement, doctors said the operation was successful and that they would predict a complete recovery.
“I’m looking forward to starting training and am set to get on tour again,” Woods said.
The year Woods last won at Torrey Pines was when back problems started popping up. He had his first microdiscectomy right before the 2014 Masters, and then he had two more in September and October 2015.
The fourth operation in April 2017 was a major operation to fuse his lower spine. Woods’ return was successful, leading to a victory in the 2018 Tournament Championship – his first in five years – and he clinched it by winning the Masters in 2019, his 15th major and his first in 11 years.
When he won the Zozo Championship in Japan in the fall of 2019, he tied Sam Snead’s career victory record with number 82, and it looks like the record is just a matter of time. But he has never been in a serious dispute in the past year and missed a full month with a small setback before golf was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When he returned in July, he finished no better than a draw for 37th place at the PGA Championship in seven tournaments he has played. In six of those events where he made the cut, he scored a combined 107 strokes from the lead.
He turned 45 at the end of last year and his operation is now up to 10 – five on his left knee, five on his back.
Woods said he has days that are tougher than others, after defending 38th place in the Masters title.
“My body only has moments where it just doesn’t work,” he said in November. “No matter how hard I try, things just do not work out as before, and no matter how much I push away from this body and ask, it sometimes works. Yes, it is sometimes harder to be motivated than others.
“Yes, because things hurt and have to deal with things I’ve never had to deal with before.”
He played the PNC Championship with his son and they finished seventh.
Woods plans to be at Riviera in his role as tournament host. The statement only reads that he will miss Torrey Pines and Riviera. He has yet to be as predictable with his schedule that has led to the Masters on April 8-11 in recent years.
The recent World Golf Championship in Mexico has moved to Florida and follows the West Coast Swing. Then there is Bay Hill, where Woods has won eight times (even before his back surgeries), but has skipped over the past two years, and The Players Championship. There are three more tournaments ahead of the Masters.