Friday, February 20, 2009
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eight months after winning the U.S. Open on one good leg, a healthy Tiger Woods is returning to golf.
Woods said on his Web site Thursday that he will defend his title next week in the Accenture Match Play Championship, believing his reconstructed left knee and his game are good enough to win.
“I’m now ready to play again,” Woods said.
The Match Play Championship in Tucson, Ariz., begins Wednesday.
Players whom Woods has beaten so often while compiling 65 victories were happy to hear he was coming back.
“He was ready to go weeks ago,” Stuart Appleby said at Riviera. “I don’t think he needs to do a couple of laps around the track. He’ll be on that horse and he’ll be whipping it.”
The timing for Woods to end his 253-day break from competition could not be better for the PGA Tour, which has seen television ratings plunge after the world’s No. 1 player had to miss the second half of the season, including two majors, the Ryder Cup and the FedEx Cup playoffs.
“We are delighted that Tiger is returning to competition and look forward to watching him compete next week,” commissioner Tim Finchem said in a statement.
The last shot Woods hit for real was a short par putt on the 91st hole of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he defeated Rocco Mediate in a playoff to capture his 14th major, which Woods described as “probably the best ever” under the circumstances.
He had surgery after the Masters last year to repair cartilage damage in his left knee, and suffered a double stress fracture in his left leg while preparing for his return.
He limped badly over the final few days of the U.S. Open, knee swelling so bad at night that he couldn’t see his knee cap. A week later, he had surgery, the third operation on his knee in five years.
What to expect?
“He’s human,” swing coach Hank Haney said. “He has played one tournament in 10 months. I would think he would be a little rusty, but I really don’t know what to expect. Nothing with Tiger ever surprises me.”
Woods began hitting short irons toward the end of December, and friends Mark O’Meara and John Cook said he had been playing plenty of golf over the last few weeks at his home course in Florida.
The last big obstacle to his return was the Feb. 8 birth of his son, Charlie Axel.
Woods will be under even greater scrutiny when he returns at Match Play, a tournament which he won three times but is unpredictable even with two good legs. The eight-month break is his longest, and there is a question of whether he had to modify his swing after surgery.
The swing hasn’t changed, Haney said, but there will be a difference in the finish because his knee doesn’t give way.
His return could last only one day. He could advance to the weekend, where he might play as many as 36 holes a day.
Unless someone withdraws — Justin Rose is a possibility since his wife is expecting their first child any day — Woods will play Brendan Jones of Australia in the first round.