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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Tiger Woods didn’t play very well.
At Augusta National, it might not matter.
“Yes, someone like him or Phil, I would never take them out to a place like this,” said Justin Thomas, who played a practice round with Woods, Fred Couples and Bryson DeChambeau on Monday. “I think this field is so unique that you don’t have to play big to have a chance to win. I think you just need to play well if you know the golf course. “
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Woods meets both needs. With only one top 10 finish in calendar year 2020 – a T9 at the Farmers Insurance Open – he is playing well. And this being his 23rd Master, he knows the course. He beat Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele to win his fifth green jacket and complete one of the most unlikely comeback stories in the sport 19 months ago.
Since then, it’s been a mixed bag. He won the inaugural ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan in the fall and helped the US Presidents Cup team as player-captain in December. Then it went flat and when the pandemic came it went dormant, not wanting to go back.
“I didn’t put all the pieces together at the same time,” said Woods, who turns 45 next month and has only made eight starts since January, most recently a T72 at the ZOZO defense and a missed US Open cut to the winged foot. .
Part of that was his surgically fused back; until the end of 2019 he didn’t realize what the year had taken away from him. He skipped the Arnold Palmer Invitational 2020 presented by Mastercard, on a course where he won eight times; The Honda Classic, the tournament of his hometown; and THE PLAYERS Championship, where he is two-time champion.
Then came the pandemic.
“This year with COVID and trying to be safe, I was reluctant to go back and start playing,” he said after merely chipping and putting on Tuesday. “And that’s why I waited as long as I did and went back to the Memorial (T40). From there, as I said, I haven’t really put all the pieces together, and hopefully it’s this week. “
Thomas said he wouldn’t bet against him. Not here.
“You have to be chipped and in good shape,” said Thomas, “but you can beat well and do it in this place just fine. You know where to hit him, you know where not to hit him.
“There are some holes,” he continued, “if you’re not hitting right, that’s fine, as long as I hit him here, I’ll be fine. And no one knows that better than Tiger.”
Additionally, he added, while this week’s forecast calls for rain, it also calls for predominantly warm weather. This bodes well for those with fragile backs, like Couples and especially Woods, who was preparing to host the Champions Dinner on Tuesday night.
The biggest news this week so far has been that pioneer Lee Elder will join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player as an honorary starter at the 2021 Masters this April. The elder received death threats when he became the first African American to play in the Masters in 1975.
Woods was asked if he could foresee a day when he and Phil Mickelson – with eight Masters titles between them – will be honorary holders.
Woods laughed. “Hopefully one day it’ll be us, and I’ll hit him with bombs,” he said.
But be wary of any suggestions that he is already a ceremonial golfer. Nicklaus, he noted, fought for the ’98 Masters at the age of 58.
“Do I expect to contend?” Woods said. “Sure.”
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