back at it on golf today some news over the weekend as 15-time major Champion Tiger Woods has been selected to receive the highest honor from the USGA that's the Bob Jones award which recognizes his commitment to sportsmanship and respect for golf's Traditions tiger will be honored June 12th during the US open at Pinehurst Tiger Wood sharing this saying that Bob Jones was a pillar of our game because of the Integrity with which he played it and I'm truly humbled to receive the award that bears h
is name and join the many who have received it before me who continue his legacy tiger both a historian and the student of the game clearly means a lot to him speaking of the big cat he's te it up today in a tournament he's never played before the seminal Pro member at the conic Juno Beach Florida Club where he will partner with PGA of America CEO Seth Wall play against dozens of teams with PGA Tour pros and Titans of Industry Woods has generally always been invited by a member in the past thoug
h he never accepted until now so a little curious after the WD at the Genesis for that illness why today was the good fit for him to te it up there I think he's just desperate for competitive action in any form I mean you you really can't go to Augusta National expecting if he plays The Players Championship which I think now is kind of the expectation to play five and a half tournament rounds and think that you can win uh the master tournament I'm not saying an 18 ho Pro member at seminal is goi
ng to get him ready for Augustin Ash but it's it's getting a scorecard in his hand it's getting some of those juic is going it's it's understanding how he feels in that moment I I do find it interesting though George because that was such a setback for what happened at Rivier I was I was there that week I saw him in the practice rounds uh I saw him at the proam I saw him in the opening round like he looked pretty good his iron play was was sharper than it had been in recent times you just wonder
whether he was going to able to to put put in enough time in the the the short game area and the practice putting green to get sharp enough for tournament competition and to be able to beat the Roy's and and the Scotties of the world what is what was kind of your take of of him playing this week obviously he's not going to be in the field at Bay Hill but at least he's getting some sort of reps yeah I mean I think it's it I don't want to call it honorary but I think it's at the stage of his care
er where Tiger's more willing to embrace being a part of events like this and I think he has an appreciation for when he's able to Tee It Up whatever level of competition you want to call this and I think five years ago if you mentioned or 10 years ago PGA Tour Champions I think tiger would have scoffed a little I think now he's probably kind of looking forward to when he'll be able to play there after turning 50 into the 26 Season I did think Genesis was a setback and it seems like we're gettin
g a lot of those now and when we think we have a somewhat clear landscape and tiger says he's play painfree and then we start throwing projections here on golf today oh here's February here's what March will look like and then he plays the Masters and then the PGA and then we realize how either frail his body can be at times or how uncertain his future is then we come crashing back to the current reality of tiger where you just have to take it one t at a time and it's almost a Fool's errand to t
ry and project what a whole year will look like he spoke so optimistically at the Hero World Challenge at the end of the year where you know I'm going to I'm going to try and play once a month and said you know really his his lower leg is not all that much of a concern anymore and if you watched him at Riviera like he's moving better than he has been in recent memory and except in the opening round he says he was experiencing back spasms and that causes the kinetic chain and he's you know kind o
f dealing with pain in other areas then he gets sick and he has to withdraw on Friday you you want to put your hand on his shoulder and be like hey once we play The Players Championship we really need to start at the Valar Championship inisbrook would be a great test for you ahead of the Masters you need to log these competitive reps if you want any chance to win at the Masters but he can't physically do it body's not able the body is not able to do that I think that's that's the frustrating par
t because I think we we have a large enough sample size now over the past two years to know that playing this Hogan s schedule of just the major championship is it sounds great in theory but it's really hard to do when you have other players we just talked about Roy mcroy right who's going to be playing eight times ahead the Masters and you have tiger who potentially assuming he makes the cut at the Players Championship would have five and a half rounds not starts five and a half rounds ahead of
a major championship it's just so hard to compete with that much competitive rust it's been at conundrum he's been facing since before the car crash and I had asked him at the 2020 BMW Championship that was his final start of that season I was the porter that week and I said how do you balance reps with having rest and that was something he was struggling with then because his back would flare up a bit and he was saying I really can't get the Reps on off weeks to balance that with the necessary
rest to make sure my body is able to compete now the pendulum is even swung even more to where rest is going to be like a 955 to reps and it's the hidden hours that make these players great and his body constrains him for how much he can actually put in so I think if it's frustrating for us in any sense the order of magnitude it's going to be frustrating for Tiger to think my body used to be able to do this 5 10 15 years ago and now I can't I have to Maxim maximize these narrow Windows of time
that I have to actually compete and get tournament ready so it's just I mean it's like an unsolvable riddle it it really is you when you think back and everyone points to the the Masters in 2019 when he was stealing still dealing with the the back issues but Tiger Woods played four or five six times yeah if you look back heading into Augusta National gave everything he had to win one last green jacket and then you know had a little bit of another injury setback and then at the end of the year he
wins a Zozo Championship as well he he just cannot put enough time in I'm sure that's maddening just kind of being a victim of your own frail body and your own frail sense that he just doesn't have a lot of time competitively to get this thing right I'm sure that has to be incredibly frustrating for a proud Champion like him
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