“Will we see each other in Portrush?”
“Portrush, will we see you in Portrush next year?”
“Portrush. Is that next year’s Open? Oh, yes. Certainly.”
Then he laughed and said, “Sorry. That’s in a year. No, I’m sorry.”
That burst of joy helped cap his major season at age 48 in this, the final major of 2024, his curtain falling with a desperate 77 on Friday under the threatening clouds and winds of the Firth of Clyde. That, in turn, helped put him on 14-over par, putting him ahead of just four other non-retired golfers and nine shots off the projected cut. The four majors he has played in, among his five total tournament appearances, have seen him miss three cuts, a fate he avoided in his first 37 majors as a pro but has befallen him in half of the 14 majors he has graced since winning the 2019 Masters.
On the bright side, the one he always spots, the 15-time major winner, 82-time PGA Tour winner and crowd magnet played every major for the first time since 2020. After his horrific early-morning car accident in February 2021 and subsequent surgeries, he had not played a single major in 2021, three in 2022 and one in 2023, withdrawing from the 2022 PGA Championship and 2023 Masters.
“I would have liked to play more,” he said, “but I just wanted to make sure I could play in the majors this year. I had a lot of time off to get better, which I have all year. I got better even though my results don’t really show it. But physically, I got better, which is great. So you have to keep improving like that and then, eventually, start playing more competitively and get back into the rhythm of competition.”
He ran away for the rest of the year, including the father-son event in December, which he dubbed “our fifth major.”
He came here as Colin Montgomerie, an eight-time winner of the European Tour Order of Merit who has never won a major, told The Times of London that he wanted Woods to retire so that his years of non-competition would not tarnish all of Woods’ past dominance. “Well,” Woods said Tuesday, “as a former champion, I’m exempt until I’m 60. Colin’s not. He’s not a former champion, so he’s not exempt. So he doesn’t get to make that decision. I do.”
Once on the Royal Troon course, with its winds blowing in surprising directions, Woods struggled more than he has in any other major this year. He had made the cut at the Masters with a strong opening 72-73, but had improved to 82-77 to finish 60th, then missed the cut by eight shots at the PGA Championship in Louisville (at 7 over par) and by two shots at the U.S. Open in North Carolina (at 5 over par). Here, he said, “Well, that wasn’t very good,” and smiled. “I made a double (bogey) on No. 2 off the tee when I needed it to go the other way, and I struggled most of the day. I never really hit close enough to make birdies and as a result I made a lot of bogeys.
He made five, plus that double bogey when he passed No. 2 visiting a native area (far left of the tee), a bit of rough and a bit of fringe.
“I loved it,” he said. “I always loved playing majors. I just wish I had been more physically sharp” — and he searched briefly for a word — “coming into the majors. Obviously it tests you mentally, physically and emotionally, and I just wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be and I was hoping I would find that somehow, but I never did.”
“I mean, he only plays majors,” Xander Schauffele said Thursday after playing alongside Woods and Patrick Cantlay. “He makes it as hard as he can, and I know he’s hard on himself, too. It’s just tough. I think he’s learning. He’s got to learn a little bit more about his body, what he can and can’t do. I’m sure he’d like to prepare more at home if his body would allow him to.”
This is the direction Woods will be looking to head in between now and 2025, and then apparently all the way to Portrush.
