Woods to get MRI on his neck

Associated Press

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa.

Tiger Woods insists there’s “zero connection” between the neck spasms playing havoc with his golf swing and his Nov. 27 car accident.

Woods said during a news conference Monday that his neck started bothering him two weeks before the Masters, his first competition in five months. He brushed it off as “no big deal” and believed he could play through the pain. That changed on Sunday at The Players Championship, where Woods’ creaky neck locked up. That prevented him from making his usual forceful turn on the ball on even a routine shot, and he was forced to withdraw after six holes.

“I’m at a point now where I just can’t go anymore,” he said.

“I want to practice, I want to play, I want to compete, but this is not allowing me to do the things that I need to do on my golf swing to hit the proper shots. I need to get to where I can do that again.”

Woods said he’s been taking anti-inflammatory drugs, but they have not helped. He plans to have an MRI when he returns to Orlando, Fla.

In November, Woods was briefly hospitalized after he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant and a tree outside his home, resulting in a sore neck and a cut lip.

On Monday, Woods insisted he can deal with the sharp, shooting pain, which he feels in the right side of his neck, but cannot deal with the spasms that affect his ability to turn his head.

“For me not to play all 18 holes, that was as angry and as frustrated as I’ve been in a long time,” Woods said of Sunday’s abbreviated round. It was his first withdrawal from a tournament since the Nissan Open at Riviera in 2006.

Woods said it wasn’t until this weekend that he felt he needed more serious treatment.

“It’s possible one of the reasons I think this thing flared up is because I wasn’t conditioned to it,” he said. “I’d been away from the game for such a long time, then came back and ramped up really quickly in order to try and play the Masters. The body wasn’t quite ready for that.

“I think it’s just once I’m able to do the work on the range and get comfortable, then all shots are fine,” he said. “But I need to do the work.”