Tiger Woods insisted people ‘don’t understand’ what he has gone through after sensationally marking his return to professional golf at the Masters last week.
The 15-time major champion admitted ‘it’s been a tough road’ as he finished with a six-over-par final round of 78 on Sunday to finish on 13-over. Woods remarkably returned at Augusta this weekend, just 14 months after his horrific crash outside Los Angeles.
The accident led to the 46-year-old suffering a shattered leg, and he underwent extensive rehabilitation to recover. He even reportedly faced amputation, but sensationally secured his comeback at Augusta and made the cut after shooting one under par on Thursday.
Regardless of the outcome, Woods is clearly proud of his superhuman effort to regain fitness. He said: “It’s been a tough road and, one I’m very thankful to have had the opportunity to be able to grind through it.
“A lot of different things could have happened, but 14 months (after his car crash) I’m able to tee it up and play The Masters. I don’t think people really understand.
“The people who are close to me understand, they’ve seen it. Some of the players who are close to me have seen it and have seen some of the pictures and the things that I have had to endure and they appreciate it probably more than anyone else because they know what it takes to do this out here at this level.”
When asked how much pain he was in during the final round on Sunday, Woods simply smiled and nodded to the amusement of those in attendance.
Woods was the talk of the first day and incredibly finished one-under par after one round, but the demanding course took its toll on his body. He fell down the leaderboard to ultimately finish 47th as he shot 13-over par in total.
“I put up a good first round and I put myself there,” Woods admitted. “I don’t quite have the endurance that I would have liked to have had but as of a few weeks ago I didn’t even know if I would play in this event, so to go from that to here.
“We’re excited about the prospects of the future, about training, about getting in the gym and doing some other stuff to get my leg stronger which we haven’t been able to do because it needed more time to heal. I think it needs a couple more days to heal after this but we’ll get into it after.”
Woods took to Twitter to thank fans for their reception to his return, while also congratulating champion Scottie Scheffler. Scheffler made no secret of his admiration for Woods during his time in Augusta, wearing the 15-time major champion’s trainers and donning his clubs.
“I didn’t play my best out there, but just to have the support and appreciation from all the fans, I don’t think words can describe that,” Woods wrote on Twitter.
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“Congratulations to Scottie Scheffler on an outstanding win. It’s been a special run.”
Scheffler dominated the Masters, leading throughout the tournament before finishing on a double bogey to shoot 10 under par to secure his first major title. It also means the 25-year-old has added the coveted Green Jacket and has placed his name among Woods and other greats as champions at Augusta.
Woods revealed he plans to play in The Open Championship at St. Andrews this July.
