TROON, Scotland — Tiger Woods hasn’t been able to muster anything resembling his former brilliance this season, but he still has a stare that strikes fear in golfers.
On Tuesday, he was asked whether it was time to consider retirement. Colin Montgomerie, the 61-year-old fellow member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, broached the ‘R-word’ in an interview last week, and suggested it was time for Woods to hang it up.
“Aren’t we there? I’d have thought we were past there,” Montgomerie told the Times of London. “There is a time for all sportsmen to say goodbye, but it’s very difficult to tell Tiger it’s time to go. Obviously, he still feels he can win. We are more realistic.”
Woods, 48, has played just nine competitive rounds this season on the PGA Tour, withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational in February during the second round, finishing dead last of those players to make the cut at the Masters and missing the cut at the PGA Championship and U.S. Open. But Woods insisted better days may be ahead.
“I’ll play as long as I can play and I feel like I can still win the event,” he said.
Asked if his belief that he can still do so has wavered, Woods said simply, “No.”
And he stared stone-faced at the questioner. No more words were needed.
British Open: Tiger Woods at Royal Troon
This has become standard practice at Tiger press conferences for the last several years as he has mounted various comebacks from various injuries, the most serious of which were the result of a single-car crash in February 2021.
The very next questioner got straight to the point and asked Woods, a three-time British Open champion, about what Montgomerie, who grew up a stone’s throw from Royal Troon but never won the Claret Jug, had said and he didn’t hold back. “Well, as a past champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not. He’s not a past champion, so he’s not exempt. So he doesn’t get the opportunity to make that decision. I do.”
The questioner asked, “You feel like you’ve earned that? You deserve that?”
Woods ignored the question and simply continued piling on Montgomerie. “So when I get to his age, I get to still make that decision, where he doesn’t.”
Woods smirked in delight.
That round goes to Woods, who barbecued Monty. But can Woods salvage what appears to be another lost year in his quest to win a 16th major and 83rd carer Tour title? Woods said he’s been able to train a lot of better and insinuated that could make a difference in his performance.
“We’ve been busting it pretty hard in the gym, which has been good. Body’s been feeling better to be able to do such things, and it translates on being able to hit the ball better,” he said. “Can’t quite stay out there during a practice session as long as I’d like, but I’m able to do some things that I haven’t done all year, which is nice.”
One observer who jumped to Woods’s defense was Hank Haney, one of Tiger’s former coaches. “A lot of people thought Augusta was Tiger’s best chance to ever win again, it’s wasn’t, it was always the Open Championship for multiple reasons,” wrote Haney on X, responding to a social media post on Woods’s swing. “He can hit shots like this, slower greens mean fewer 3 putts and no one has more knowledge about playing links golf. Based on what he’s done so far this year it’s kind of looking like now or never. His swing looks really good in practice.”
Woods also noted he has made or is considering making the following changes to his bag for the test at Troon.
“I’m monkeying around with the bounce on my 60. I got a couple 60s I’m kind of experimenting right now, one with a little bit less bounce for the chipping areas,” he said. “I bent my 3-iron yesterday one degree stronger just to be able to hit it off the deck and get that thing down and flighted and running. And I added lead tape to my putter just because the greens are so slow.”
Woods is returning to Troon for the first time in 20 years. He finished T-24 here in 1997 and T-9 in 2004, but was sidelined with injury in 2016. He hasn’t been called Champion Golfer of the Year since 2006, but said he’s always enjoyed the challenge of Troon.
“It’s one of those courses where you’re going to get it on one of the nines,” he said. “It’s either going out it’s going to be downwind, or coming home it’s going to be into the wind or vice versa. Half of the holes are going to be playing really difficult, and the other ones are definitely gettable.”