Your eyes aren't deceiving you: Tiger Woods is swinging much slower than you remember.
Woods is playing with his son, Charlie, as a team in the 2024 PNC Championship at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla., in what's become a family tradition. They'll play together in a scramble, where both players hit tee shots on each hole, then select the best of the two tee shots as a position to hit the second shot, and so on, until the ball is holed on each hole.
The elder Woods will hit tee shots from the back tees on the Grande Lakes course, but he's hoping they won't need his tee shots as much.
Woods is sidelined by his sixth significant back surgery of his career, coming back in September -- a microdecompression surgery of the lumbar spine for nerve impingement in the lower back.
Join Golf News Net for $10 per year, and go ad-free!On Sept. 13, Woods tweeted about the surgery, including saying, "The surgery went smoothly, and I'm hopeful this will help alleviate the back spasms and pain I was experiencing throughout most of the 2024 season," he said. "I look forward to tackling this rehab and preparing myself to back to normal life activities, including golf."
The result is that Woods can't swing particularly hard at the moment. He's just trying to get the ball out toward the fairway, hoping that his son, Charlie, will be able to use his 180 mph driver ball speed to hit the ball a long way and in play for the team.
From there, Woods will be able to swing well enough with short irons and wedges to contribute to the team. Of course, Woods can chip and putt, too. But the 15-time major winner isn't going to be a ton of help off the tee and with longer approach shots.
"Hopefully I don't have to hit any drivers, and so he drives it in play, we go out there, hit iron shots, he makes all the putts, and I just am a good backup," Woods said, half-joking.
The nearly 49-year-old said he had the back procedure done when he did with the goal of playing this week with Charlie and having his daughter Sam on the bag as caddie -- even if that meant swinging at a fraction of his power.
"I'm not competitively good right now, but I just wanted to be able to have the experience again," Woods said. "This has always been one of the bigger highlights of the year for us as a family, and now we get to have that moment together again."
