When Tiger Woods limped off the course at the Honda Classic with only five holes to go you could have gotten pretty long odds that he would not be back to compete in the Doral Tourney just 5 days away. But Tiger has announced that he will play through the pain and try to pick up a piece of the big $9,000,000 purse posted for the event.
There was much speculation when Woods went down at Palm Beach Gardens that he would be skipping the Doral and perhaps everything else in between, in preparation for the upcoming Masters at Augusta in mid-April. However, the lure of the links turned out to be just too much for Woods to miss a major tournament right there in his home state of Florida.
Woods told the press at Doral, “I feel better. It’s been a long couple days of just treatment non-stop, trying to get everything calmed down. Treatment has gotten me to the point where I am now and then tomorrow I’ll go all out.” He commented that his bad back ‘comes and goes’.
Woods had a terrible time at the Honda Open slicing off shots like a high schooler and missing the easiest of putts by a wide margin. Obviously something was very wrong when the top golfer in the world shoots that badly. The surprising thing was that he did not drop out sooner.
So now, for the first time in a long time, Tiger Woods will not start a major PGA Golf Tournament as the favorite of the big boards of the Las Vegas Sports Books.
Woods is currently listed at +800 at Doral but the handicappers have put Rory McIlroy ahead of him at +625 even though McIlroy crashed and burned on the final day at Doral and blew a nice lead, he had led most of the match.
Last years’ Masters Champion Adam Scott is listed at +1000 while Dustin Johnson is at +1200 with Jason Day and Sergio Garcia sharing +1400. All other golfers are listed at +2000 and above for the WGC-Cadillac Championship.
Tiger Woods told reporters at Doral practice that explaining to his young daughter was tough. “Explaining to your six-year old daughter why you quit is certainly an interesting concept and topic.”
Tiger summed it up, “The will to win hasn’t changed. It’s physically, am I able to do it? A bad back is no joke.”
