Tiger Woods believes he is capable of winning a sixth Masters title despite a frustrating start to the year.
The 15-time Major winner has only made one competitive appearance in 2024, at February's Genesis Invitational. However, even that didn't go according to plan, when illness forced him to withdraw from the second round.
Woods then didn't play again in the build-up to the first Major of the year despite anticipation of an appearance at either The Players Championship or the Valspar Championship, but any lingering doubts over his involvement at Augusta National were ended when he was listed in the field for the Masters last month.
Despite his lack of competitive action, after a practice round on Tuesday morning with Justin Thomas and Fred Couples, Woods spoke to the media, where he discussed his chances of winning, saying: “If everything comes together, I think I can get one more,” before adding with a smile: “Do I need to describe that any more than that, or are we good?”
That positivity bears similarities with Woods’ comments from his first press conference of 2024 at Riviera Country Club, when he said: "A nice W would be nice, right? I haven't ever won this event. I played in this event since '92 and the years I've played I still have never won this event. Hopefully I can figure something out and get myself in there in contention and maybe get a W at the end of the week."
Of course, that didn’t work out, and Woods had been in danger of missing the cut before his withdrawal. That came after he had initially targeted an ambitious 2024 schedule of a tournament a month at last December's Hero World Challenge.
Woods addressed why that didn't happen, explaining: “Well, I wasn't ready to play. My body wasn't ready. My game wasn't ready. And I thought that when I was at Hero, once a month would be a really nice rhythm. Hasn't worked out that way.”
The 48-year-old thinks that, beginning this week, that’s something he can change over the coming months, particularly with the huge tournaments coming thick and fast at this time of the year. He continued: “But now we have Major championships every month from here through July. So now the once a month hopefully kicks in.”
Woods is also confident he can win again at some point, even if a first Masters title since 2019 eludes him this week. Asked if he would consider becoming an honorary starter if the necessary elements of his game eventually failed to come together he again gave a positive outlook over his chances of future success. He said: “Well, I still think they can. So I don't know when that day is, when that day comes, but I still think that I can.”
Whether Woods wins this week or in the future, he has already impressed fellow pro Will Zalatoris in the build-up to this year’s event. The 27-year-old partnered Woods during a practice round on Monday and revealed afterwards “he outdrove me a couple of times," before adding: "He's moving as well as he can be. Again, with everything he's gone through, it's pretty amazing to see how good he's swinging it.”
