Tiger Woods launched his unbelievable quest for a record-equalling sixth Masters title on Thursday, 14 months after a rollover automobile crash left him with accidents so extreme he feared he would lose his proper leg. The 46-year-old, who has fallen to 973rd on the planet rankings, mentioned this week he thought his sport was ok to win a sixteenth main championship. However he acknowledged his surgically repaired leg was an unknown amount heading into his first top-flight aggressive spherical in 17 months on the hilly, 7,510-yard Augusta Nationwide course. “You recognize, 72 holes is an extended highway, and it should be a troublesome problem and a problem that I am up for,” Woods mentioned days earlier than the match.
Woods minimize a vibrant determine in a scorching pink shirt and black trousers — all the higher for the 1000’s of Augusta patrons eager to get a glimpse of him to trace their hero.
A 30-minute delay to the beginning due to pre-dawn thunderstorms solely intensified the anticipation for Woods’s look on the primary tee.
He wasn’t delighted along with his opening drive, which got here up wanting the righthand fairway bunker. His strategy trickled off the inexperienced.
As Woods opened his spherical, two gamers — Irish veteran Padraig Harrington and beginner Austin Greaser, have been one-under by 9 holes.
Woods’s quest for a sixteenth main title comes 25 years after he cemented his celebrity standing with a record-setting victory that made him the youngest Masters winner, nabbing the primary of his present 15 main titles.
He teed off alongside former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Chilean Joaquin Niemann — who wasn’t born when Woods received his first Masters title in 1997.
Niemann is amongst a raft of younger golfers whose careers have been formed by Woods’s affect.
Scottie Scheffler, 25, arrived at Augusta ranked primary on the planet after profitable his first three US PGA Tour titles within the house of two months.
Spain’s US Open champion Jon Rahm, 27, can regain the primary rating he ceded to Scheffler with a primary Masters victory, one in every of 5 gamers who can supplant the American this week together with reigning British Open champion Collin Morikawa, FedEx Cup champion Patrick Cantlay, rising Norwegian star Viktor Hovland and Australian Cameron Smith.
Northern Eire’s four-time main winner, Rory McIlroy, will likely be attempting for the eighth time to finish a profession Grand Slam with a Masters victory, whereas defending champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan is battling health considerations as he tries to hitch Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Woods as the one gamers to win back-to-back Masters titles.
What number of comebacks?
However all the main focus was on Woods, and whether or not he can pull off essentially the most miraculous comeback but in a profession marked as a lot by his gritty dedication to defy ache as by his elegant talent.
Woods received the 2008 US Open with a damaged leg, then battled by 5 again surgical procedures, together with a spinal fusion, earlier than he received his fifteenth main title on the 2019 Masters.
“I imply, what number of comebacks has he had?” former Masters champion Jordan Spieth marvelled.
Former PGA Champion Justin Thomas says Woods’s sport is “a lot, a lot ok to play properly”.
So Woods will as soon as once more defy the ache and attempt to defy the percentages to match Jack Nicklaus’s report of six inexperienced jackets and edge nearer to Nicklaus’s all-time report of 18 main titles.
He would turn out to be the third-oldest main winner in historical past and would surpass Nicklaus because the oldest Masters winner by a matter of weeks.
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