He started early in his press conference, sending a question about the decision of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club in St Andrews. Not Inviting Greg Norman Because of the distracting noise Norman’s presence would make due to his presiding over the LIV Tour.
“Obviously, R&A has their own opinions, judgments, and decisions,” Woods said. “Greg has done some things that I don’t think are in the best interest of our game, and maybe we’ll go back to the most historic and traditional place in our sport. I think it’s the right thing.”
Specify some answers later: “I know what the PGA Tour is and what we’ve done and what this tour has given us, the ability to follow our careers and earn what we get and the awards we’ve been able to play and the history that was part of this game. I know Greg tried to do that. (Competition tour) Early ’90s It didn’t work then, and he’s trying to make it work now.
“I still don’t see how that is in the best interest of the game. What is the European Tour and what the PGA Tour stands for and what they did, as well as all the professionals – all the governing bodies of golf and all the major tournaments, how they run it. I think they see it differently than Greg does” .
And he didn’t hesitate in his calm answer to a question about the group of players who had already defected, including main winners Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson Deschamps, Patrick Reed and Louis Oosthuizen.
“I disagree with him,” Woods said. “I think what they did was they turned their backs on what allowed them to get into that position. Some players didn’t even get a chance to try it. They went straight from the amateur ranks to that organization and didn’t really get the chance to play here and feel what it’s like to play a tour schedule or play In some big events. And who knows what will happen in the near future with the world ranking points, the criteria for entering the major tournaments. The governing body will have to find out.
“Some of these players may not get the chance to play in the major tournaments. … We don’t know that for sure yet. It is up to all the major tournament bodies to make that decision. But it is a possibility, that some players will never get the chance to play in a major championship, and they’ll never get a chance to try this here, (or) walk the trails at the Augusta National. That, to me, I just don’t get it.
“I understand what Jack (Niklaus) and Arnold (Palmer) did (when they started the PGA Tour in the late ’60s) because playing professional golf at the tour level versus the club pro (level) is different, and I understand that transition and this move and the recognition that tour pro versus professional The club is.
But what do these players do for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice? What is the incentive to go out and earn it in the dirt? You just get a lot of money up front and play some events and play 54 holes. They play loud music and they have all these different vibes.”
He was wandering around as gently as ever.
“I can understand that 54 holes is almost like delegating when you get to a senior round. The guys are a little bit older and they mess up a little bit more. But when you’re at that young age and some of these kids – they’re really kids who transitioned from amateur golf to that organization – the component tests are From 72 holes a part of it… It would be sad to see some of these young children ever get a chance to experience that and experience what we have a chance to experience and walk on these sacred pitches and play in these tournaments.”
Woods declared himself “very optimistic” about the future of the sport, noting the “greatest boom in golf ever right now because of the Covid virus” and how golf has become an outdoor respite from indoor isolation. He said, “Just look at the tour, the average age is getting younger and younger, they are getting better sooner and faster and they are winning at such a young age.
Speak at length about the holiest of these roofs, St. Andrews, as it celebrates its anniversary with the number “150” ubiquitous on the T-shirts and banners found here. “It’s my favourite,” he said of the course, remembering playing the 1995 event as an amateur alongside Ernie Els and Peter Jacobsen in the first two days. He spoke of how the Eternity outperformed technology, such that with Tuesday’s blistering winds, “at 10, it hit Iron 6 from 120 yards.”
He spoke like an old man when he said, “And with the track being fast and firm, it allows the older players to run the ball in there and have a chance.”
This cycle will not challenge his body as the intense ripples of Augusta National did in masters In April or the southern slopes of the hills in Tulsa in the PGA Championship in May. In those cases, walking has overtaken golf as a challenge to a damaged and hardware-saturated lower right leg after his dreaded California car accident in February 2021.
“It’s still not easy,” he said. “Right, the slopes are not very steep by any means. They are not – the dips are not very steep. But the unevenness is still hard for me. I have a lot of hardware in my legs.” He said, “Playing Augusta, I didn’t know. My legs weren’t in good shape to play 72 holes. I ran out of gas. But it’s different now. I’m much stronger, much better.”
He said that when he once came here and asked for a wooden plank into his room to strengthen the mattress for his back, he is now asking for “more snow.”
In the end, he asked another fitting question of a statesman, whether he thought the new generation shared his appreciation for history. And while he said they could check the history in their phones nowadays, he touched more on the history of golf he knows. “I saw Bob Charles over there hitting 18 times,” he said. “I think he won in 63 (min) or something. Just to be able to see that in person, live, oh my god, it was so special. I just hope the kids appreciate it.” He concluded, “Nothing was ever given to you. You have to go out and win it, and you earned it through the dirt. I am very proud of that.”
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