Fifteen-time major champion Tiger Woods turns 50, still plans return to golf

Woods has not yet publicly indicated where he intends to play when he recovers from his latest health challenges.

The past season marked the first time he did not play in a single PGA Tour event.

In March, while training at his Florida home ahead of the Masters, Woods ruptured his left Achilles tendon. Later, on October 10, he underwent the latest of several back surgeries, replacing a disc in his lower back.

At a news conference during the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas earlier this month, Woods revealed he had only recently resumed putting and chipping and was far from being able to swing fully.

"Once I get a feel for practicing, exploding, playing, the recovery process, then I can assess where I'm going to play and how much I'll play," Woods said. "I'm a ways away from that part of it and that type of decision, that type of commitment level."

Since a car accident near Los Angeles in February 2021, Woods has played in just 11 PGA Tour events. The crash left him with multiple open fractures in his lower right leg, requiring a rod in his tibia and screws and pins in his foot and ankle during emergency surgery. 

Woods withdrew from the 2023 Masters before a Sunday restart following weather delays, citing aggravated plantar fasciitis in his foot. Ten days later, he underwent surgery to treat post-traumatic arthritis in his right ankle, followed by a microdecompression procedure on his lumbar spine in September 2024 to relieve nerve impingement.

His most recent PGA Tour appearance came in July 2024 at the Open Championship at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland, where he missed the cut. 

"I'd like to come back to just playing golf again," Woods said in the Bahamas earlier this month. "I haven't played golf in a long time. It's been a tough year. I've had a lot of things happen on and off the golf course that's been tough. And so my passion [is] to just play, I haven't done that in a long time."

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