At the PGA Tour event he hosted on Friday, spectators flocked to the clubhouse and first tee, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tiger Woods before he even hit the ground. That’s always the case wherever Woods plays, but this particular vista, which looked out over the first hole at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, was particularly lovely. The tee is perched on a cliff, and throngs of people have gathered to watch Woods from the top of the panorama. They stood with the group in front of him, clapping courteously for Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay, two real contenders for the tournament. The first roar was produced when Woods emerged from behind them and entered the temporary kitchen that was close to the hole. The biggest cheer was heard when Woods made his tee shot. After Woods’ shot, the audience began to disperse because no one had come to witness Gary Woodland, despite the fact that he was the second of his group’s three players to do so.
At the PGA Tour event he hosted on Friday, spectators flocked to the clubhouse and first tee, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tiger Woods before he even hit the ground. That’s always the case wherever Woods plays, but this particular vista, which looked out over the first hole at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, was particularly lovely. The tee is perched on a cliff, and throngs of people have gathered to watch Woods from the top of the panorama. They stood with the group in front of him, clapping courteously for Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay, two real contenders for the tournament. The first roar was produced when Woods emerged from behind them and entered the temporary kitchen that was close to the hole. The biggest cheer was heard when Woods made his tee shot. After Woods’ shot, the audience began to disperse because no one had come to witness Gary Woodland, despite the fact that he was the second of his group’s three players to do so.
Less than two hours later, Woods was heading back toward the clubhouse on a golf cart, leaving the seventh hole behind. At each event he performs, Woods is almost 90% of the draw, so the audience was abuzz with rumors about what had gone wrong. His back, which he claimed had gone into spasms after he shanked a shot on the 18th hole the day before, was the subject of immediate conjecture in the galleries. An emergency vehicle convoy drove up outside the clubhouse a little after 2:00 p.m. An ambulance was backed up to the building by medical staff, and a horde of reporters gathered around, anticipating to see Woods taken to a hospital. Woods did not, however, take an ambulance away. It was determined to be the flu.
The day was an agonizingly accurate portrait of what life would be like for Tiger Woods in 2024. Even now, five years after his last Masters victory and during a run of tournaments he finds difficult to begin, let alone finish, no player in golf can command attention like Woods. Since the Masters in 2022, Woods has participated in six tournaments and withdrew from three of them. At 48 years old, he is definitely past the prime of his winning tour tournaments, but not too old to still be competitive. The Saudi Arabian government’s potential partnership with the tour or attempt to overtake it, contingent on the conclusion of ongoing negotiations, is currently golf’s most pressing existential dilemma. However, another issue facing the sport is that Tiger Woods is a one-of-a-kind talent who will eventually retire.
The issue progressively became worse as the Genesis Invitational went on. One of the main events on the PGA Tour had about as much energy as sleep for the majority of the weekend. For a brief while on Sunday, it appeared that the competition would come down to a close finish, as five players were tied at one point on the last nine holes. Japanese sensation Hideki Matsuyama won the tournament by three strokes after leading by six shots going into the final round on Sunday. It was a fitting way to cap off a really uneventful weekend. And as soon as Woods rolled away, the dullness began to set in.
The main conflict surrounding Woods is that, despite his constant command of a circus, he is subject to the same, if not greater, physical constraints as everyone else. Vendors left their stations to watch him swing as he struck his first tee shot. After making a birdie on the first hole, a short par-5 that most golfers can easily birdie, he was greeted like a king on the second. A couple of people on inflatable tigers were waiting for him on the green on the third hole. A bunch of young men donned shirts featuring Tiger’s mug image from his 2017 DUI arrest on the fifth. (He entered a guilty plea for careless driving.) “Big Cat on the loose!” someone said as he made a par putt on the sixth hole after making a poor tee shot. “Let’s fucking go, Tiger!” exclaimed someone else. The loudest sound in golf has always been and always will be the roars for Woods.
However, throughout his round, other things occurred. As his teammates struck the ball on the fifth tee, I observed Woods hunching over a cooler on the side of the tee. Woods hurried to the next hole’s restroom as his teammates were putting out at the finish of the previous one. After making his tee shot on the seventh hole, he gave up and rode out of the competition on a cart. The fact that most people were relieved to learn that Woods’ departure was due to an illness rather than a relapse of his back or foot problems speaks volumes about the state of his career. If nothing else, it most likely wouldn’t last long.
When Woods quits playing in the middle of a round at a PGA Tour event, it’s difficult to describe from a distance how much air leaves the balloon. There was a four-deep crowd of spectators waiting to watch the greatest player of all time hit his approach shot and then make a birdie on the seventh green, where I waited for Woods to make his putt. The people waiting for Woods realized they wouldn’t get to watch any shots at all when he drove by in the cart’s passenger seat. The guys on the inflatable tigers talked with two other guys wearing orange T-shirts as they ascended the next hole. Everyone appeared distraught. Twenty yards to their right, the player in first place was playing the hole. They were not observing.
It was the paradox of Woods in full bloom at this point in his career. Whatever happens as a result of his retirement from Genesis, he is obviously in a reduced state. All eyes are on him, though, for something. Those who purchase tickets continue to do so in the hopes that Woods will personally make attending worthwhile. He continues to be relied upon by the media for everything from television ratings to article clicks (thank you for reading!). Woods is crucial to the PGA Tour’s operations and serves as a safeguard against the Saudis’ LIV Golf, as are other players. After snatching player after player, the rival circuit was unable to secure the player. Although Woods had the opportunity to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from the Saudis, he chose to remain on the PGA Tour and eventually rose to prominence on the board of directors.
This dynamic ought not to persist. When Woods approaches 50 and repeatedly shows how difficult it is for him to even finish a tournament, the PGA Tour shouldn’t be overly dependent on him. However, as LIV has diminished the tour’s star power and Woods is now simultaneously the biggest player in golf and a man fighting for his rights, the sport does not appear to be well-suited to support a healthy elite professional game without him.
Of course, for more than a decade, the prospect of golfing without Woods has hovered over the course of the game. It wasn’t Woods’ first, second, or third long-awaited comeback in this tournament. But it did feel a little different from a normal Tiger comeback. On his bag was a new caddy. (Joe LaCava, who shared the 2019 Masters victory with Woods, was leading the event at the time with his new player, Cantlay.) Tiger was sporting his brand-new “Sun Day Red” assortment of apparel from golf apparel maker TaylorMade. (He had a connection with Nike that lasted his whole professional career; they parted ways last month.)
And when he returned, the tour still featured the majority of the top players in the world, but not all of them. By about midway through his second round, he was eliminated from contention, even if he hadn’t been forced to withdraw from the competition. These days, everything about Woods in a golf tournament is different, save for the fact that more fans find more entertainment value in watching him struggle through his rounds than anything else.
