Tiger Woods set to return to action after 13 months
Tiger Woods will return to competitive golf, minus most of the walking, when he tees it up for Jupiter Links Golf Club on the last night of the TGL finals on Tuesday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Sahith Theegala birdied the final hole, giving Los Angeles Golf Club two points and a 6-5 comeback win over Jupiter Links Golf Club in the first match of title series on Monday.
The best-of-three set concludes Tuesday night with the second match and, if necessary, the decisive match.
Woods has been serving as an adviser and unofficial cheerleader for his TGL team while working his way back from lumbar disk replacement surgery in October and a left Achilles tendon rupture that occurred last spring.
The back operation was the seventh Woods, 50, has undergone.
The last time Woods participated in a full-fledged golf event was when he missed the cut at the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon in Scotland.
Asked last week about playing at the Masters next month, Woods said, “I said I’ve been working on it. Sometimes I have good days, sometimes I have bad days. Disk replacement is not a lot of fun.
“So as I said, I’ve had a lot of procedures prior to that, so the body doesn’t quite heal like it was when I was 24. Doesn’t quite bounce back. So I have good days when I can pretty much do anything, and other days where it’s hard to just to move around.”
On Monday, Jupiter’s team of Max Homa, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner led 3-2 after nine holes of triples play against Los Angeles’ team of Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood and Theegala.
In singles, Rose beat Homa and then Fleetwood topped Kim to put L.A. up 4-3. Theegala topped Kisner and then Rose defeated Homa as Jupiter went back in front 5-4.
After Fleetwood and Kim halved their hole, it came down to Theegala vs. Kisner. With the hammer thrown, doubling the value of the hole, Theegala reached the green in two on par-5 15th hole, and he got the birdie. Kisner’s chip-in attempt from off the green would have halved the hole and given Jupiter the victory if it went in, but it came up short.
In the inaugural TGL finals last year, the Atlanta Drive GC swept New York Golf Club 2-0.