[ad_1]
Tiger Woods hits a bunker at the 13th hole during the final round of the BMW Championship Golf Tournament at the Medinah Country Club on Sunday, August 18, 2019, in Medinah, Ill. (AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh)
For the fifth time in six years, August on the PGA Tour no longer means Tiger Woods for the rest of the season.
Only now is he healthy.
He is also the champion of the masters. And that makes it a season he would not trade.
"Very special to win my 15th major and get my fifth jacket," Woods said Sunday. "These are great times to have such an opportunity, and for the rest of the tournaments, I did not really play as well as I wanted, but at the end of the day it's me who wears the green jacket. "
Woods has rarely smiled so widely after not achieving a goal.
His season has ended in Medinah, where he has won two PGA Championship titles at the top of his game and his health. He finished with a 72 tie in the BMW Championship and a 37th tie, which he missed to enter the top 30 of the FedEx Cup and qualify for the end-of-season championship next week in East Lake.
"It's disappointing," said Woods about not returning to Atlanta. "I wish I could." Last year culminated with a special enough moment for me, and it would have been nice to come back there, but I'll watch the guys on TV. "
It will be the 15th time in his career that Woods will not run for a title on the PGA Tour, which is remarkable considering that Fred Couples has won only 15 times in his career. Other opportunities not to defend a title usually involve a change of schedule, a tournament end or health reasons.
This is the first time because he was not eligible.
He had started the PGA Tour playoffs at 28th place, but had retired after a 75 in the first round at the Liberty National with what he called a slightly oblique strain. That brought him to No. 38 of the FedEx Cup and he finished at No. 42.
It was slightly surprising that Woods even tried to try his luck at Medinah, and he looked pretty normal, with the exception of rust. He did his best to return to the stage of last year's greatest golf moment: a win at East Lake, where thousands of fans escape to watch Woods mark the return of four surgeries by beating the best. players.
And then he started again where it really counts – a major.
Woods needed help from Francesco Molinari's tee shot in Rae's Creek at the 12th hole of the last round, and similar mistakes from Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau, but it looked like an old wood at place of an old man with an error free finish for a major 15th, his first in 11 years.
Just like that, the account at Jack Nicklaus and his 18 majors was on again.
Instead, it was as good as possible.
He vaguely said that his back was not in the cold of Bethpage Black for the PGA Championship in May, his first tournament since the Masters. He never took the path to Pebble Beach for the American overture. After a long break, he missed the cup at the British Open and then wanted to go home.
But he won the Masters and that makes up for a lot.
"It's as if I had told him that he was going to be 18, he's got the jacket – it's all that matters," said Cadet Joe LaCava. "I'd be lying if I told you I'm not disappointed in the second half of the season, if I were happy and satisfied, I should not be in the industry."
LaCava also has an idea of what Woods feels at the age of 43 with eight surgeries – four on his knee until 2008, four on his back since 2014.
"By the time we get there next year, it will be refocused, ready and after," La Cava said.
The season is over. The year is not.
Woods returns home for a nine-week break before returning for the first PGA Tour event in Japan in late October. He has his Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas the first week of December, followed by his role as US captain in the Presidents' Cup at Royal Melbourne.
He did not make the team. It would be surprising if he chose himself, including playing only one tournament in Japan, for one of his captain's four choices.
Woods finished the season with 12 tournaments, his shortest season on the PGA Tour when he was healthy, with no outside distractions. He has not always been at the height of tournaments, and he now has two months without competition.
"I think right now, the most important thing is fitness," Woods said. "Keep going as I do now because I have to get a little stronger in some parts of my body, activate different areas, I have to strengthen those parts and then start building my game for Japan."
He will not be in Georgia next week for the Tour Championship.
Instead, Woods will be home in South Florida where he has a green jacket to remind him that yes, this has been a year to celebrate.
[ad_2]
Source link