Tiger Woods hasn’t publicly announced a return date to golf, but those close to him believe they have a good idea when it will be.
The PNC Championship on Dec. 18-19 has an open spot, according to Golf Channel, and that could belong to the rehabbing Woods.
“Not a doubt in my mind that Tiger is playing the PNC,” Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee said Friday during Golf Central Pregame.
One factor is Woods, who needed surgery to repair a shattered ankle and two leg fractures suffered in a horrific car crash in February, doesn’t have to walk the course like a typical tournament. Also, he would be able to play with his son Charlie.
“Tiger can ride a cart, he can drive up basically to the golf ball and almost onto the green, so the walking might not be as much of a stress on the leg,” fellow Gold Channel analyst Notah Begay III, a friend of Woods and his former teammate at Stanford, said this week. “But also, he can play Charlie’s drives. I covered them for the majority of that event last year, and Charlie was hitting most of the drives because of where his tees are at, and he’s such a good ball-striker that they were taking advantage of his drives because they were much farther than where Tiger’s balls were off the tee. Those are two critical things that I think might factor into him possibly showing up in a couple weeks with Charlie. I know the world would love to see it.”
Woods, 45. met the media for the first time on Tuesday since the car accident that sidelined him. The 15-time major winner hopes to get back to playing competitive golf in some form.
“I’ll put it to you this way, as far as playing at the Tour level, I don’t know when that’s going to happen,” Woods said. “Now, I’ll play a round here or there, a little hit and giggle, I can do something like that. … To see some of my shots fall out of the sky a lot shorter than they used to is a little eye-opening, but at least I’m able to do it again. That’s something that for a while there it didn’t look like I was going to. Now I’m able to participate in the sport of golf, now to what level, I do not know that. I’ll keep you abreast, all of you abreast as progress continues to go on, whether I’ll be out here and at what level and when.”