Tiger Woods Plans To Play The Masters ‘As Of Right Now’ And Believes He Can Win

Less than 14 months ago, Tiger Woods was in a horrific car crash that required multiple surgeries to repair his right leg, which doctors worried they may have to amputate at one point due to the severity of his injuries. Not many expected we would ever see Tiger Woods back at the top of the golf world and especially not back a year after that crash, but in November he posted a video of him hitting a ball on the range that indicated he was on the comeback trail that had golf fans in a frenzy.

Woods played in a father-son event in December that allowed him to play using a golf cart to get around, and it was clear that his swing was making a full recovery. The bigger question was whether he could handle the rigors of a PGA Tour event, walking 72 holes over four days and all the stress that places on his leg. For months, Woods has been making more and more public appearances and was never willing to fully rule out playing at this year’s Masters — while also being careful not to get everyone’s hopes up.

However, the last two weeks it has gone from feeling like a long shot we’d see Tiger prowling around Augusta National Golf Club to feeling like a lock, as he’s been on the grounds practicing and playing, testing that leg over and over. On Tuesday, Woods met with the media in the most anticipated pre-tournament press conference ever, and indicated that, as of today, he was in fact planning on playing in the tournament.

That is the first confirmation from Woods, who noted he still will play nine more holes on Wednesday to see how his leg reacts to more of the strenuous walk that is Augusta National, but barring something unforeseen, he’ll tee it up on Thursday with the best golfers in the world. As for expectations, it should come as no surprise that Tiger believes he can win another green jacket, noting that his golf game is far from the concern right now.

No one moves the needle like Tiger Woods and that’s been the case for 25 years, when he first won a green jacket back in 1997. Making his return at the place where his legend truly began feels right, and in the words of Chubbs, he’s going to play and by god, he’s going to win.