At 50, Tiger Woods Faces a Career-Defining Question That Could Reshape His Future
Tiger Woods turned 50 on Tuesday, making the 15-time major championship winner eligible to compete on the PGA Tour Champions circuit once he recovers from his latest health setbacks.
Woods hasn’t publicly said whether he intends to play on the former Senior PGA Tour, which allows golfers to use carts and has a 54-hole format at most tournaments outside of the 72-hole majors.
This past season was the first time Woods didn’t compete in a single tournament on the PGA Tour. He was scheduled to compete in the Genesis Invitational but pulled out, saying he wasn’t ready to compete after the death of his mother, Kultida, on Feb. 4.
Then Woods ruptured his left Achilles tendon in March while ramping up training and practice at home in Florida for the Masters. He had what is believed to be his seventh back surgery Oct. 10 to replace a disk in his lower back that caused pain and mobility issues
During a news conference at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas on Dec. 2, Woods said he had only recently started putting and chipping and wasn’t close to being able to take full swings.
“Once I get a feel for practicing, exploding, playing, the recovery process, then I can assess where I’m going to play and how much I’ll play,” Woods said. “I’m a ways away from that part of it and that type of decision, that type of commitment level.”
If not for Woods’ myriad injuries, he’d probably still have plenty of competitive golf left in him after reaching the half-century mark. Phil Mickelson became the oldest major championship winner at 50 when he won the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
Injuries have been Woods’ biggest obstacle in recent years. He has competed in only 11 PGA Tour tournaments in the past five seasons since suffering serious injuries in a single-car wreck outside Los Angeles in February 2021. Woods had multiple “open fractures” to his lower right leg, and he had a rod placed in his tibia and screws and pins inserted in his foot and ankle during emergency surgery. He later told reporters that surgeons nearly had to amputate his right leg.
After pulling out of the 2023 Masters before a Sunday restart following weather delays, Woods said he had aggravated plantar fasciitis in his foot. He underwent surgery 10 days later to address post-traumatic arthritis in his right ankle, then had a microdecompression surgery of the lumbar spine for nerve impingement in the lower back in September 2024.
Woods last competed in a PGA Tour event in July 2024, when he missed the cut at the Open Championship at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland. He hasn’t played four rounds in an official tournament since finishing 60th in the 2024 Masters.
The 82-time PGA Tour winner’s last top-20 finish in a major came in the 2019 Masters, which he won to collect his fifth green jacket.
“I’d like to come back to just playing golf again,” Woods said in the Bahamas earlier this month. “I haven’t played golf in a long time. It’s been a tough year. I’ve had a lot of things happen on and off the golf course that’s been tough. And so my passion [is] to just play, I haven’t done that in a long time.”
Even with Woods recovering from his latest setbacks, his friends on the PGA Tour are ribbing him about reaching 50.
“I knew he was old. I didn’t realize he was that old,” Gary Woodland said at this month’s PNC Championship, which Woods skipped. “Tiger’s impact, obviously, in the game of golf is amazing. What he’s done off the course with his foundation, I wish he was here, too. Hopefully, he’s healing to a point where he’s going to get back out because we all miss him. It’s all better when he’s out.”
South African Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion, joked that he reminds his children to send Woods a Christmas card every year for the impact he had on golf.
“[Tell] them if you’re going to send one Christmas card every year, you better send it to Tiger because without him we would be in a different situation,” Immelman said.
At the Hero World Challenge, Woods joked that he would probably play in 25 events on both tours after turning 50.
“I think that should cover most of the year, right?” Woods said. “No, I’m just looking forward to just [getting] back to playing again. Let me do that, and then I’ll kind of figure out what the schedule is going to be.”
The PGA Tour Champions schedule tees off on Jan. 22-24 at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Hawaii. The first major, the Senior PGA Championship, will be played at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida, on April 16-19, which is a week after the Masters.
Woods is the only golfer to win the U.S. Junior Amateur, U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open, so he might have some motivation to compete in the U.S. Senior Open, which will be played at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, on July 2-5.
“I think what we ought to do is potentially challenge him,” Jim Furyk said at this month’s Skechers World Champions Cup. “I don’t think he can hang out here at these three-round tournaments. Maybe he’ll get mad and play a bunch.”
Steve Flesch, a four-time winner on the senior circuit, suggested that Woods would have to make his PGA Tour Champions schedule in advance to give tournament organizers enough time to prepare.
“On our tour, that puts a big challenge on our tournament directors if he does decide to play out here, but he waits until the Friday before the event,” Flesch said. “That’s a big buildout difference. A lot of people would show up to see Tiger Woods because he hasn’t been in any of these markets. We hope he would play in some of those.
