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Woods to test injuries this week
AP
Photo
Tiger Woods hits his approach shot from near the gallery during a practice round for The Players Championship, Tuesday, May 10, 2011, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Associated Press
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla.
Tiger Woods heard a series of shutters from a spectator’s camera and stopped his swing at the last minute, knees flexed, club shaft parallel to the ground, holding his pose until he could regain his balance.
“Oh, no,” said the caddie for Mark O’Meara. “You’re starting to swing like Charles Barkley.”
Woods doubled over in laughter Tuesday on the eighth tee on the TPC Sawgrass, a light moment during his first time playing golf since disclosing minor knee and Achilles’ injuries from the Masters.
Woods said the left knee — which has gone through four surgeries — and his left Achilles’ are better.
“Good enough to play,” he said.
How much better remains to be seen, and Woods still has to make it to the first tee Thursday morning for the start of The Players Championship, where he hasn’t finished better than eighth since winning 10 years ago.
Woods said he tweaked his left knee from an awkward swing in the pine straw on the 17th hole of the Masters in the third round, and he played through the discomfort in the final round when he closed with a 67 after making a brief charge.
“It didn’t feel good on Sunday. That was tough,” Woods said. “I played through it, but ... I was in the midst of playing and competing and had to power through it, so I did it. I was able to shut it down for a little bit and was able to care of it.”
Woods said he practiced Monday for the first time since the Masters. He played golf Tuesday — the front nine at Sawgrass — for the first time since that last day at Augusta. He is treating the injuries with anti-inflammatories, ice, elevating his legs and some soft tissue work. Still to be determined, since he hasn’t spent any time playing, is whether it swells.
“We’ll see how this week progresses,” he said. “If it flares up like it did at Augusta, then it flares ups. But hopefully, it won’t.”
Woods’ swing coach, Sean Foley, said he had been walking in a protective boot as a precaution. Woods chose not to play the Wells Fargo Championship last week, giving himself a week to see if the knee and Achilles’ improved. He said he would have played last week had it been a major, smiling as if to remind that he won a U.S. Open on a shattered left leg three years ago.
That was his 14th major, and the last time he won the tournaments that mean the most. And he made it clear, even at a tournament debated as the “fifth major,” that it remains his priority.
“The whole idea is that I peak four times a year, and I’m trying to get ready for Congressional, and I need some playing time,” Woods said.
The TPC Sawgrass is not among his favorites, and the record reflects that.
He was runner-up to Hal Sutton in 2000, then won The Players Championship the following year. Since then, he has only one top 10 — eighth place, after starting the last round in the final group, five shots out of the lead.